Eggcorn? Weary/Wary

[Kari Castor]

My husband consistently confuses weary and wary, and I have a friend who has
also been known to do so.
Kari


On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 9:46 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Eggcorn?  Weary/Wary
>
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>
> At 10:28 AM -0400 6/12/09, Baker, John wrote:
> >         A building security email from our landlord today includes the
> >line, "Be weary of people working in pairs, as most delivery personnel
> >work alone."  Google indicates 332,000 hits for "be weary of," with the
> >first few examples clearly meaning "be wary of."
> >
> >         Is this an eggcorn?  I'm not sure whether it includes the
> >necessary element of reanalysis.  Probably some people do think it means
> >"be tired of," but I would think most people would realize that's not
> >exactly what the phrase means, even if they're unfamiliar with the word
> >"wary."  Presumably it's also influenced by "leery."
> >
> It would help to know how they pronounce it.  It could just be a
> misspelling (cf. "wear", "wearing"), but it's pronounced as a
> homophone of "wary", it could be an eggcorn.  And of course a
> misspelling can result in a reanalysis.
>
> LH
>
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