wreak/wrought
Pat Durkin
sure the correct simple past tense. Since it was not forthcoming in that
search, I tried "wrought" and, rather than provide any inflections of
"wreak", the durn thing switched to all the many uses of "work".
(I had gone to the weatherworld.com site and seen the "wreaked havoc"
term, once again, so thought I might answer my own questions.)
I even went to "wright" just in case it was realated to "wrought", but it
seems to have a different etymology altogether, though "wright" seems to
mean work, as "wrought iron" means "worked iron".
Can someone please refer me to a site that will show the different parts of
a verb? (I don't know if I need to use the term "parse" or "inflect" here.)
I found this on xfer: "The phrases work havoc and wreak havoc (in which
wreak is not etymologically related to work or wrought) are still locked in
battle: the indications are that work havoc but wreaked havoc will prevail
as an uneasy pair. Logic does not necessarily play much of a part in
linguistic development."
In my mind, as in "buy, bought, bought"
the verb should be "wreak, wrought, wrought".
Where might I see this old-fashioned breakdown of verbs??
I also want to look up "tread, trod, (trod) trodden".
meirm...@erols.com
<durk...@nothome.com> posted:
>I just looked up in M-W Online the word "wreak", in the hopes of finding for
>sure the correct simple past tense.
It is "wreaked". Since it is regular, they didn't specify it.
> Since it was not forthcoming in that
>search, I tried "wrought" and, rather than provide any inflections of
>"wreak", the durn thing switched to all the many uses of "work".
>
>(I had gone to the weatherworld.com site and seen the "wreaked havoc"
There you go!
>term, once again, so thought I might answer my own questions.)
>
>I even went to "wright" just in case it was realated to "wrought", but it
>seems to have a different etymology altogether, though "wright" seems to
>mean work, as "wrought iron" means "worked iron".
>
>Can someone please refer me to a site that will show the different parts of
www.dictionary.com has the parts here, even though it is regular.
And the word doesn't mean 'work'! Once you know what the word means,
you'll be able to use it with other objects, not just in this cliche
form. Also see the 'usage note'.
>a verb? (I don't know if I need to use the term "parse" or "inflect" here.)
>
"Parse" is something like "As it were". When I was in college,
someone had a button that said "Down with 'as it were'".
>
>I found this on xfer: "The phrases work havoc and wreak havoc (in which
>wreak is not etymologically related to work or wrought) are still locked in
>battle: the indications are that work havoc but wreaked havoc will prevail
>as an uneasy pair. Logic does not necessarily play much of a part in
>linguistic development."
I'm stickin' with 'wreak havoc' for the present tense.
>In my mind, as in "buy, bought, bought"
> the verb should be "wreak, wrought, wrought".
That's because you assume they are related, but wrought is well known
to some as a past tense of work.
>Where might I see this old-fashioned breakdown of verbs??
>I also want to look up "tread, trod, (trod) trodden".
>
see above.
Born west of Pittsburgh Pa. 10 years
Indianapolis, 7 years
Chicago, 6 years
Brooklyn NY 12 years
Baltimore 17 years
Martin Ambuhl
>
> I just looked up in M-W Online the word "wreak", in the hopes of finding for
> sure the correct simple past tense.
It is "wreaked." Something may have caused great harm, as in
"wreaked havoc", or it may have worked great harm, as in "wrought
havoc", "wrought" being the archaic past tense of "work".
Don Phillipson
news:bO4E7.111156$My2.62...@news1.mntp1.il.home.com...
> I just looked up in M-W Online the word "wreak", in the hopes of finding
for
> sure the correct simple past tense.
Up to the present, consulting any URL in the hopes of
finding authoritative information about language usage
is about as plausible as going to the library and
consulting only those books printed in Garamond
fonts.
--
Donald Phillipson
dphil...@trytel.com
Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada)
613 822 0734
Eric Walker
[...]
>I found this on xfer: "The phrases work havoc and wreak havoc
>(in which wreak is not etymologically related to work or
>wrought) are still locked in battle: the indications are that
>work havoc but wreaked havoc will prevail as an uneasy pair.
>Logic does not necessarily play much of a part in linguistic
>development."
Curious. Of ten usage manuals I consulted, only Garner (1998)
had any entry at all under either "wreak" or "havoc"; In Garner
(_A Dictionary of Modern American Usage_), we find: "(In BrE,
the usual idiom is _play havoc_.) But _wreak havoc_ has two
variants to be avoided: _wreck havoc_ and _work havoc_."
A look in Curme's _English Grammar_ does not find "wreak" under
irregular or strong verbs. My desk dictionary gives no hint of
irregular conjugations either, defining _wreak_ (as derived from
ME. wreken < OE. wrecan, to revenge, punish, akin to G. rachen
[umlauted "a"], Goth. wrikan <IE. base *wreg-, to shove,
oppress, hunt down, whence L/ urgere, to press, urge) as
1. "give vent or free play to (one's anger, malice, rage, etc."
and 2. "to inflict, cause (harm or havoc)."
Note that "wrought" is the alternate past and pp. for "work."
Thus, if I have put all that together aright:
wreak havoc, wreaked havoc, wreaked havoc
or
work havoc, wrought havoc, wrought havoc
or possibly
work havoc, worked havoc, worked havoc
--but at least one source strongly deprecates those last two.
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker, Owlcroft House
Richard R. Hershberger
"Eric Walker" <ewa...@owlcroft.com> wrote in message
news:rjnyxrebjypebsgpb...@news.cis.dfn.de...
> On Thu, 01 Nov 2001 05:09:27 GMT, Pat Durkin wrote:
> [...]
>
> >I found this on xfer: "The phrases work havoc and wreak havoc
> >(in which wreak is not etymologically related to work or
> >wrought) are still locked in battle: the indications are that
> >work havoc but wreaked havoc will prevail as an uneasy pair.
> >Logic does not necessarily play much of a part in linguistic
> >development."
>
> Curious. Of ten usage manuals I consulted, only Garner (1998)
> had any entry at all under either "wreak" or "havoc"; In Garner
> (_A Dictionary of Modern American Usage_), we find: "(In BrE,
> the usual idiom is _play havoc_.) But _wreak havoc_ has two
> variants to be avoided: _wreck havoc_ and _work havoc_."
The xrefer quote is originally from New Fowler. Burchfield also notes, in
the article for "havoc", that the earliest recorded use of "wreak havoc" is
from 1926 while that for "work havoc" is from 26 years earlier. It's not as
if either construction has great weight of antiquity backing it. Webster's
Dictionary of English Usage, which you seem not to have consulted, discusses
this in the article "wreak, wreck". It characterizes "work havoc" as an
occasional usage.
This looks to me like a dialect distinction, with "wreak havoc" being the
common form in American English and the "work/wreaked havoc" combination
being British.
Garner doesn't tell us why "work havoc" is to be avoided, but then again
only a committed optimist expects Garner to support his assertions. A
reasonable first guess is that it is simply the usage manualist's
superstition that less common = bad.
Richard R. Hershberger
Eric Walker
[...]
>The xrefer quote is originally from New Fowler. Burchfield
>also notes, in the article for "havoc", that the earliest
>recorded use of "wreak havoc" is from 1926 while that for "work
>havoc" is from 26 years earlier. It's not as if either
>construction has great weight of antiquity backing it.
Lacking antiquity, we try old-fashioned logic and lexicography.
At "wreak," the OED gives, at 3 (1 and 2 being obsolete usages),
"To give vent or expression to, to exercise or gratify (wrath,
anger, etc.)." Quotations of that usage go back to A.D. 900.
At 10, we find "To take vengeance; to inflict punishment."
(3 is the first entry of sense II and 10 is the first entry of
sense IV.)
Under "havoc," the sense since about Shakespeare's time has been
"devastation, destruction; esp. in phr. _to make havoc, play
havoc_."
(Presumably all know the chief sense of "work," so that OED
extracts are unneeded.)
While one can indeed "work a mischief" and "work harm," the
violent force of "havoc" seems especially well matched with the
correspondingly violent sense of "wreak." "Work" seem
pusillanimous and badly overmatched in such a construction.
The core phrase, "play havoc" is old; whether "work" or "wreak"
is a suitable playmate is a judgement call.
>Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, which you seem not to
>have consulted, discusses this in the article "wreak, wreck".
>It characterizes "work havoc" as an occasional usage.
>
>This looks to me like a dialect distinction, with "wreak havoc"
>being the common form in American English and the "work/wreaked
>havoc" combination being British.
>
>Garner doesn't tell us why "work havoc" is to be avoided, but
>then again only a committed optimist expects Garner to support
>his assertions. A reasonable first guess is that it is simply
>the usage manualist's superstition that less common = bad.
But surely nose counts are the Holy Grail! Indeed, we needn't
have wasted time paltering with logic and lexicography at all:
Google shows roughly 73,200 hits on "wreak havoc" and 570 on
"work havoc" (with 15,500 for "play havoc").
_Vox populi, vox Dei_, no?
Alan Jones
> But surely nose counts are the Holy Grail! Indeed, we needn't
> have wasted time paltering with logic and lexicography at all:
> Google shows roughly 73,200 hits on "wreak havoc" and 570 on
> "work havoc" (with 15,500 for "play havoc").
>
> _Vox populi, vox Dei_, no?
Is this ironic? The content of Mr Walker's message (snipped) would suggest
not, but I had assumed that "vox populi ..." in such a context would never
be uttered at Owlcroft without a snort of derision. Perhaps the snort is in
the ", no?"
NSOED shows archaic past of "wreak" as "wroke" and archaic perf.part. as
"wroken". If we're happy with archaic "wrought" (otherwise used only for
"wrought iron", I think) perhaps we could revive these other forms.
In BrE, "play havoc with" suggests confusion rather than vengeance or
destruction: "Last night's storm played havoc with the arrangements for the
Women's Institute summer fete". I've never (AFAIR) come across "work havoc"
in that present form, though its proper past "wrought havoc" is fairly
common. "Wreak havoc" is universal as the present, though I assume it was
first used by confusion with "wreak vengeance [upon]".
Alan Jomes
George Hardy
It seems to me that "wreak havoc" is an expression which uses
"wreak" in its only common usage in English. (Like "fro" in
"to and fro". Do you *ever* use "fro" in another context?)
"Wrought", as in "wrought iron", is a generally obsolete past
participle of "work", as you note. "Wrought havoc" as a past
tense of "wreak havoc" is the current usage, but it is, as you
note, actually a switch of verb from "wreak" to "work".
Expressions are a very hard part of any language, especially as
they often include otherwise obsolete words. But as my German
teacher answers students, "That's what Germans say." This
expression is a good example of "That's what Americans say."
GFH
psi
news:7c7350d8.01110...@posting.google.com...
... snip ...
> It seems to me that "wreak havoc" is an expression which uses
> "wreak" in its only common usage in English. (Like "fro" in
> "to and fro". Do you *ever* use "fro" in another context?)
"Wreak revenge" is common enough in the UK to dispute your comment from
here. I feel sure I have come across "wreak disaster" as well.
psi
Eric Walker
>"Eric Walker" <ewa...@owlcroft.com> wrote in message
> news:rjnyxrebjypebsgpb...@news.cis.dfn.de...
>> On Sat, 03 Nov 2001 01:01:46 GMT, Richard R. Hershberger
>> wrote:
>.......
>> But surely nose counts are the Holy Grail! Indeed, we
>> needn't have wasted time paltering with logic and
>> lexicography at all: Google shows roughly 73,200 hits on
>> "wreak havoc" and 570 on "work havoc" (with 15,500 for "play
>> havoc").
>>
>> _Vox populi, vox Dei_, no?
>
>Is this ironic? The content of Mr Walker's message (snipped)
>would suggest not, but I had assumed that "vox populi ..." in
>such a context would never be uttered at Owlcroft without a
>snort of derision. Perhaps the snort is in the ", no?"
Yes. Oh yes.
>NSOED shows archaic past of "wreak" as "wroke" and archaic
>perf.part. as "wroken". If we're happy with archaic "wrought"
>(otherwise used only for "wrought iron", I think) perhaps we
>could revive these other forms.
I think we're better off with the contemporary forms, which give
"wreaked havoc"; they leave no confusion in anyone's mind, while
"wroke havoc" would just look like a typo and "wrought havoc" is
a disguised switch of verb to "work."
>In BrE, "play havoc with" suggests confusion rather than
>vengeance or destruction: "Last night's storm played havoc with
>the arrangements for the Women's Institute summer fete". I've
>never (AFAIR) come across "work havoc" in that present form,
>though its proper past "wrought havoc" is fairly common.
I would guess through confusion about the past of "wreak."
>"Wreak havoc" is universal as the present, though I assume it
>was first used by confusion with "wreak vengeance [upon]".
Not, I would guess, confusion, just a reasonable extension of
"wreak" (if it is an extenson at all and not just a simple use.)
George Hardy
I tend to say "take revenge". Not that I would fail to understand
"wreak revenge", but I would find the expression a little "odd".
GFH