Common Errors W

WAIL/WHALE

One informal meaning of "whale" is "to beat." Huck Finn says of Pap that
"He used to always whale me when he was sober."

Although the vocalist in a band may wail a song, the drummer whales on
the drums; and lead guitarists when they thrash their instruments wildly
whale on them.

Although this usage dates back to the 18th century and used to be common
in Britain and America, it is now confined mostly to the US, and even
there people often mistakenly use "wail" for this meaning.

WAIT ON/WAIT FOR

In some dialects it's common to say that you're waiting on people or
events when in standard English we would say you're waiting for them.
Waiters wait on people, so it's all right to say "I'm tired of waiting
on you hand and foot"; but you shouldn't say "I'm waiting on you down
here at the police station; bring the bail money so I can come home."

WALK THE TALK/WALK THE WALK

Aristotle's followers are said to have discussed philosophy while
walking about with him--hence their name: "peripatetics." I suppose they
could have been said to "walk the talk."

For the rest of us, the saying is "if you're going to talk the talk,
you've got to walk the walk"--a modern version of old sayings like
"actions speak louder than words" and "practice what you preach."
Another early form of the expression was "walk it like you talk it."

Many people now condense this to "walk the talk," which makes a sort of
sense (act on your speech), but strikes those who are more familiar with
the original form as confused.

WANDER/WONDER

If you idly travel around, you wander. If you realize you're lost, you
wonder where you are.

WARMONGERER/WARMONGER

"Monger" is a very old word for "dealer." An ironmonger sells metal or
hardware, and a fishmonger sells fish. Warmongers do not literally sell
wars, but they advocate and promote them. For some reason lots of people
tack an unneeded extra "-er" onto the end of this word. Why would you
say "mongerer" when you don't say "dealerer"?

WARY/WEARY/LEERY

People sometimes write "weary" (tired) when they mean "wary" (cautious)
which is a close synonym with "leery" which in the psychedelic era was
often misspelled "leary"; but since Timothy Leary faded from public
consciousness, the correct spelling has prevailed.


WARRANTEE/WARRANTY

Confused by the spelling of "guarantee," people often misspell the
related word "warrantee" rather than the correct "warranty." "Warrantee"
is a rare legal term that means "the person to whom a warrant is made."
Although "guarantee" can be a verb ("we guarantee your satisfaction"),
"warranty" is not. The rarely used verb form is "to warrant."

WAS/WERE

In phrases beginning with "there" many people overlook the need to
choose a plural or singular form of the verb "to be" depending on what
follows. "There were several good-looking guys at the party" [plural];
"unfortunately one of them was my husband" [singular].

WASH

In my mother's Oklahoma dialect, "wash" was pronounced "warsh," and I
was embarrassed to discover in school that the inclusion of the
superfluous "R" sound was considered ignorant. This has made me all the
more sensitive now that I live in Washington to the mispronunciation
"Warshington." Some people tell you that after you "warsh" you should
"wrench" ("rinse").

WAX

An unusual use of the word "wax" is "to change manner of speaking," as
in "she waxed eloquent on the charms of New Jersey" or "he waxed poetic
on virtues of tube amplifiers." These expressions mean that she became
eloquent and he became poetic. It is an error to say instead "she waxed
eloquently" or " he waxed poetically."

WAY/FAR, MUCH MORE

Young people frequently use phrases like "way better" to mean "far
better" or "very much better." In formal writing, it would be gauche to
say that Impressionism is "way more popular" than Cubism instead of
"much more popular."

WAYS/WAY

In some dialects it's common to say "you've got a ways to go before
you've saved enough to buy a Miata," but in standard English it's "a way
to go."

WEAK/WEEK

People often absentmindedly write "last weak" or "next weak." Less often
they write "I feel week." These mistakes will not be caught by a
spelling checker.

"Weak" is the opposite of "strong." A week is made up of seven days.


WEATHER/WETHER/WHETHER

The climate is made up of "weather"; whether it is nice out depends on
whether it is raining or not. A wether is just a castrated sheep.

WEINER/WIENER

The Vienna sausage from the city the Austrians call Wien inspired the
American hot dog, or wiener. Americans aren't used to the European
pronunciation of IE as "ee" and often misspell the word as "weiner."

WENSDAY/WEDNESDAY

Wednesday was named after the Germanic god "Woden" (or "Wotan"). Almost
no one pronounces this word's middle syllable distinctly, but it's
important to remember the correct spelling in writing.

WENT/GONE

The past participle of "go" is "gone" so it's not "I should have went to
the party" but "I should have gone to the party."

WE'RE/WERE

"We're" is a contraction of the phrase "we are": the apostrophe stands
for the omitted letter A. "Were" is simply a plural past-tense form of
the verb "are." To talk about something happening now or in the future,
use "we're"; but to talk about something in the past, use "were." If you
can't substitute "we are" for the word you've written, omit the
apostrophe.

"We were going to go to the party as a prince and princess, but Derek
cut himself shaving, so we're going instead as a female werewolf and her
victim."

WERE/WHERE

Sloppy typists frequently leave the "H" out of "where." Spelling
checkers do not catch this sort of error, of course, so look for it as
you proofread.

WET YOUR APPETITE/WHET YOUR APPETITE

It is natural to think that something mouth-watering "wets your
appetite," but actually the expression is "whet your appetite"--sharpen
your appetite, as a whetstone sharpens a knife.

WHACKY/WACKY

Although the original spelling of this word meaning "crazy" was
"whacky," the current dominant spelling is "wacky." If you use the older
form, some readers will think you've made a spelling error.

WHAT/THAT

In some dialects it is common to substitute "what" for "that," as in
"You should dance with him what brought you." This is not standard
usage.

WHEAT/WHOLE WHEAT

Waiters routinely ask "Wheat or white?" when bread is ordered, but the
white bread is also made of wheat. The correct term is "whole wheat," in
which the whole grain, including the bran and germ, has been used to
make the flour. "Whole wheat" does not necessarily imply that no white
flour has been used in the bread; most whole wheat breads incorporate
some white flour.

WHEELBARREL/WHEELBARROW

One very old meaning of the word "barrow" is an open container for
carrying people or goods. The earliest barrows were carried by two
people holding handles on either end. Add a wheel to one end and you
have a wheelbarrow which can be handled by a single person. The word is
also sometimes applied to two-wheeled versions.

The word has nothing to do with barrels.

WHENEVER/WHEN

"Whenever" has two main functions. It can refer to repeated events:
"Whenever I put the baby down for a nap the phone rings and wakes her
up." Or it can refer to events of whose date or time you are uncertain:
"Whenever it was that I first wore my new cashmere sweater, I remember
the baby spit up on it." In some dialects (notably in Northern Ireland
and Texas) it is common to substitute "whenever" for "when" in
statements about specific events occurring only once and whose date is
known: "Whenever we got married, John was so nervous he dropped the ring
down my decolletage." This is nonstandard. If an event is unique and its
date or time known, use "when."

WHEREABOUTS ARE/WHEREABOUTS IS

Despite the deceptive "S" on the end of the word, "whereabouts" is
normally singular, not plural. "The whereabouts of the stolen diamond is
unknown." Only if you were simultaneously referring to two or more
persons having separate whereabouts would the word be plural, and you
are quite unlikely to want to do so.

WHERE IT'S AT

This slang expression gained widespread currency in the sixties as a hip
way of stating that the speaker understood the essential truth of a
situation: "I know where it's at." Or more commonly: "You don't know
where it's at." It is still heard from time to time with that meaning,
but the user risks being labeled as a quaint old Boomer. However,
standard usage never accepted the literal sense of the phrase. Don't
say, "I put my purse down and now I don't know where it's at" unless you
want to be regarded as uneducated. "Where it is" will do fine; the "at"
is redundant.

WHEREFORE

When Juliet says "Wherefore art thou Romeo?" she means "Why do you have
to be Romeo--why couldn't you have a name belonging to some family my
folks are friendly with?" She is not asking where Romeo is. So if you
misuse the word in sentences like "Wherefore art thou, Stevie Wonder?"
(you wish he'd make another great album like he used to), you make
yourself sound illiterate rather than sophisticated.

WHETHER/WHETHER OR NOT

"Whether" works fine on its own in most contexts: "I wonder whether I
forgot to turn off the stove?" But when you mean "regardless of whether"
it has to be followed by "or not" somewhere in the sentence: "We need to
leave for the airport in five minutes whether you've found your teddy
bear or not."

See also "if/whether."

WHILST/WHILE

Although "whilst" is a perfectly good traditional synonym of "while," in
American usage it is considered pretentious and old-fashioned.

WHIM AND A PRAYER

A 1943 hit song depicted a bomber pilot just barely managing to bring
his shot-up plane back to base, "comin' in on a wing and a prayer"
(lyrics by Harold Adamson, music by Jimmy McHugh). Some people who don't
get the allusion mangle this expression as "a whim and a prayer."
Whimsicality and fervent prayerfulness don't go together.

WHIMP/WIMP

The original and still by far the most common spelling of this common
bit of slang meaning "weakling, coward," is "wimp." If you use the much
less common "whimp" instead people may regard you as a little wimpy.

WHOA IS ME/WOE IS ME

"Whoa" is what you tell a horse to get it to stop, extended in casual
speech to an interjection meant to make someone pause to think in the
middle of a conversation--sometimes misspelled "woah." The standard
woeful lament is "Woe is me."

WHIP CREAM/WHIPPED CREAM

You whip cream until it becomes whipped cream; and that's what you
should write on the menu.

WHISKY/WHISKEY

Scots prefer the spelling "whisky"; Americans follow instead the Irish
spelling, so Kentucky bourbon is "whiskey."


WHO'S/WHOSE

This is one of those cases where it is important to remember that
possessive pronouns never take apostrophes, even though possessive nouns
do (see it's/its). "Who's" always and forever means only "who is," as in
"Who's that guy with the droopy mustache?" or "who has," as in "Who's
been eating my porridge?" "Whose" is the possessive form of "who" and is
used as follows: "Whose dirty socks are these on the breakfast table?"

WHO/WHOM

"Whom" has been dying an agonizing death for decades--you'll notice
there are no Whoms in Dr. Seuss's Whoville. Many people never use the
word in speech at all. However, in formal writing, critical readers
still expect it to be used when appropriate. The distinction between
"who" and "whom" is basically simple: "who" is the subject form of this
pronoun and "whom" is the object form. "Who was wearing that awful dress
at the Academy Awards banquet?" is correct because "who" is the subject
of the sentence. "The MC was so startled by the neckline that he forgot
to whom he was supposed to give the Oscar" is correct because "whom" is
the object of the preposition "to." So far so good.

Now consider this sort of question: "Who are you staring at?" Although
strictly speaking the pronoun should be "whom," nobody who wants to be
taken seriously would use it in this case, though it is the object of
the preposition "at". (Bothered by ending the sentence with a
preposition? See my "Non-Errors" section.) "Whom" is very rarely used
even by careful speakers as the first word in a question, and many
authorities have now conceded the point.

There is another sort of question in which "whom" appears later in the
sentence: "I wonder whom he bribed to get the contract?" This may seem
at first similar to the previous example, but here "whom" is not the
subject of any verb in the sentence; rather it is part of the noun
clause which itself is the object of the verb "wonder." Here an old
gender-biased but effective test for "whom" can be used. Try rewriting
the sentence using "he" or "him." Clearly "He bribed he" is incorrect;
you would say "he bribed him." Where "him" is the proper word in the
paraphrased sentence, use "whom."

Instances in which the direct object appears at the beginning of a
sentence are tricky because we are used to having subjects in that
position and are strongly tempted to use "who": "Whomever Susan admired
most was likely to get the job." (Test: "She admired him." Right?)

Where things get really messy is in statements in which the object or
subject status of the pronoun is not immediately obvious. Example: "The
police gave tickets to whoever had parked in front of the fire hydrant."
The object of the preposition "to" is the entire noun clause, "whoever
had parked in front of the fire hydrant," but "whoever" is the subject
of that clause, the subject of the verb "had parked." Here's a case
where the temptation to use "whomever" should be resisted.

Confused? Just try the "he or him" test, and if it's still not clear, go
with "who." You'll bother fewer people and have a fair chance of being
right.

WHOLE-HARDILY/WHOLEHEARTEDLY

If you want to convey your hearty congratulations to someone, you do so
not "whole-hardily" but "wholeheartedly"--with your whole heart.

A WHOLE 'NOTHER/A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

It is one thing to use the expression "a whole 'nother" as a consciously
slangy phrase suggesting rustic charm and a completely different matter
to use it mistakenly. The "A" at the beginning of the phrase is the
common article "a" but is here treated as if it were simultaneously the
first letter of "another," interrupted by "whole."

WHO'S EVER/WHOEVER'S

In speech people sometimes try to treat the word "whoever" as two words
when it's used in the possessive form: "Whose-ever delicious plums those
were in the refrigerator, I ate them." Occasionally it's even misspelled
as "whoseever." The standard form is "whoever's," as in "Whoever's plums
those were. . . ."

WILE AWAY/WHILE AWAY

"Waiting for my physical at the doctor's office, I whiled away the time
reading the dessert recipes in an old copy of Gourmet magazine." The
expression "while away the time" is the only surviving context for a
very old use of "while" as a verb meaning "to spend time." Many people
substitute "wile," but to wile people is to lure or trick them into
doing something--quite different from simply idling away the time. Even
though dictionaries accept "wile away" as an alternative, it makes more
sense to stick with the original expression.

-WISE

In political and business jargon it is common to append "-wise" to nouns
to create novel adverbs: "Revenue-wise, last quarter was a disaster."
Critics of language are united in objecting to this pattern, and it is
often used in fiction to satirize less than eloquent speakers.

WITHIN/AMONG

"Within" means literally "inside of," but when you want to compare
similarities or differences between things you may need "among" instead.
It's not "There are some entertaining movies within the current
releases," but "among the current releases." But you can use "within" by
rewriting the sentence to lump the movies together into a single entity:
"There are some entertaining movies within the current batch of
releases." A batch is a single thing, and the individual films that make
it up are within it.

WOMAN/WOMEN

The singular "woman" probably gets mixed up with the plural "women"
because although both are spelled with an O in the first syllable, only
the pronunciation of the O really differentiates them. Just remember
that this word is treated no differently than "man" (one person) and
"men" (more than one person). A woman is a woman--never a women.

WONT/WONÕT

People often leave the apostrophe out of "won't," meaning "will not."
"Wont" is a completely different and rarely used word meaning "habitual
custom." Perhaps people are reluctant to believe this is a contraction
because it doesn't make obvious sense like "cannot" being contracted to
"can't." The Oxford English Dictionary suggests that "won't" is a
contraction of a nonstandard form: "woll not."

Quite a few confused folks substitute "want" for "wont," leading to
mangled expressions such as "such is my want."

WORLD WIDE WEB

"World Wide Web" is a name that needs to be capitalized, like
"Internet." It is made up of Web pages and Web sites (or, less formally,
Websites).

WORSE COMES TO WORSE/WORST COMES TO WORST

The traditional idiom is "if worst comes to worst." The modern variation
"worse comes to worst" is a little more logical. "Worse comes to worse"
is just a mistake.

WORKING PROGRESS/WORK IN PROGRESS

If your project isn't finished yet, it's not a "working progress" but a
"work in progress."

WOULD HAVE/HAD

The standard way to talk about something in the past that's different
from what really happened is to use "had," as in "The robber wished he
had given the bank clerk a fake when she asked for his ID card." People
often say instead "wished he would have," but this pattern is not
acceptable in standard written English.

WOULD HAVE LIKED TO HAVE/WOULD HAVE LIKED

"She would liked to have had another glass of champagne" should be "she
would have liked to have another glass. . . ."

WRANGLE/WANGLE

If you deviously manage to obtain something you wangle it: "I wangled an
invitation to Jessica's party by hinting that I would be inviting her to
our house on the lake this summer." But if you argue with someone, you
wrangle with them: "Once I got to the party, Jessica's attitude
irritated me so much that we wound up wrangling constantly during it."
Of course cowboys wrangle cattle, and specialists wrangle other animal
species in films.

WRAPPED/RAPT

When you get deeply involved in a project, you may say you're wrapped up
in it; but if you are entranced or enraptured by something you are
"rapt," not "wrapped." The word means "carried away" and is used in
expressions like "listening with rapt attention," "rapt expression," and
"rapt in conversation."

WRECKLESS/RECKLESS

This word has nothing to do with creating the potential for a wreck.
Rather it involves not reckoning carefully all the hazards involved in
an action. The correct spelling is therefore "reckless."

WRITE ME

Many UK English speakers and some American authorities object strongly
to the common American expression "write me," insisting that the correct
expression is "write to me." But "write me" is so common in US English
that I think few Americans will judge you harshly for using it. After
all, we say "call me"--why not "write me"? But if you're an American
trying to please foreigners or particularly picky readers, you might
keep the "write me" phobia in mind.

If you disagree, please don't write me.

WRITTING/WRITING

One of the comments English teachers dread to see on their evaluations
is "The professor really helped me improve my writting." When "-ing" is
added to a word which ends in a short vowel followed only by a single
consonant, that consonant is normally doubled, but "write" has a silent
E on the end to ensure the long I sound in the word. Doubling the T in
this case would make the word rhyme with "flitting."

WONDERKIND/WUNDERKIND

We borrowed the term "wunderkind," meaning "child prodigy," from the
Germans. We don't capitalize it the way they do, but we use the same
spelling. When writing in English, don't half-translate it as
"wonderkind."