weary~wary

Neal Whitman nwhitman at AMERITECH.NET
Wed Dec 7 22:04:23 UTC 2011


If "Larry" didn't already exist as a well-recognized proper noun, I wonder if the blending of "leary" and "wary" would have come out that way. Of course, "weary" was already a word, too...

Neal

On Dec 7, 2011, at 3:47 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: weary~wary
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Dec 7, 2011, at 9:22 PM, David Barnhart wrote:
>
>> I've heard just a few minutes ago (and for at least the second time in a
>> week) the use of _weary_ where clearly the word should be _wary_.  The
>> speakers were being interviewed on NPR.  They seemed otherwise to be
>> well-spoken.
>>
>>
> --but maybe just very tired
>
> LH
>
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