Wonder/wander & wary/weary

[GiantKitten]

These 2 pairs seem to have swapped spellings for many people. When? WHY???

And totally different meanings. Sigh.

(There are others but these 2 are all I can think of just now!)

@Carouselfish

And totally different meanings. Sigh.

Yes, I wasn’t sure whether to say it was meanings they’ve swapped rather than spellings

Wary and weary have only started appearing recently, I think whereas wander/wonder has been an occasional confusion for years.

Wary and weary don't sound alike in my accent, which makes it even more bizarre.

Unlike most people, I struggle with misspelled words- I often fail to get the sense, I think I have a very literal reading brain.

@picklemewalnuts

Wary and weary have only started appearing recently, I think whereas wander/wonder has been an occasional confusion for years.

Wary and weary don't sound alike in my accent, which makes it even more bizarre.

Unlike most people, I struggle with misspelled words- I often fail to get the sense, I think I have a very literal reading brain.

I wonder if there are any accents where they sound similar?

I can at least understand how the o has crept into wander!

This thread has reminded me of something I used to totally get wrong....until I was in my thirties, would you believe, I never used to understand the word 'misled' , thought it was pronounced 'mizzled' and didn't have a clue what it meant !!

One that really annoys me these days is seeing 'where' instead of 'were', eg. "we where going to town".

Maybe people know how to pronounce wear, and think if you stick a Y on the end it makes wary?

DS2 'wrote' a book once. (It was actually the plot of Titanic so he didn't really come up with the storyline). Jack and Rose wondered around the ship a lot.

In his defence he was only about 6 at the time.