TWU
waive / waiver / wave / waver
Waive means ³to not demand something you are entitled to² or ³not cause (a rule) to be enforced.²
q Ah, take the Cash in hand and waive the Rest.‹Edward Fitzgerald
Waiver (or waivers) is the act or document that gives up a right, privilege, or claim; it also means ³to place (a ball player) on waivers² or ³to release after placing on waivers.²
q At some point, every player in baseball is put on waivers.‹Joe Bick
Meanings for the verb wave include:
m To motion with the hands in signal.
m Flutter.
m To move in waves; heave.
m To become moved back and forth; brandish or flourish.
m To move with a wavelike motion.
m Undulate.
Meanings for the noun wave include:
m The act of signal by a movement of the hand.
m One of a series of ridges that moves across the surface of a liquid (especially across a body of water).
m Something that rises rapidly and dies away.
m A shape or outline having successive curves.
m A movement like that of the ocean.
m Curves and undulations in the hair.
m A progressive disturbance propagated without displacement of the medium itself.
q There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.‹Arthur C. Clarke
The verb waver means ³to sway to and fro² or ³to pause in uncertainty or hold back in unwillingness.²
q Grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver.Sophocles
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wan / wane / wax
Wan (rhymes with John), as an adjective means ³unnaturally pale, as from physical or emotional distress; suggestive or indicative of weariness, illness or melancholy; dim, barely perceptible; ineffectual.²
q While the angels, all pallid and wan,Uprising, unveiling, affirmThat the play is the tragedy ³Man²,And its hero the Conqueror Worm.‹Edgar Allan Poe
[We do not know if Poe pronounced wan to rhyme with man or man to rhyme with wan.]
Wane (pronounced as Wayne) means ³to decrease, dwindle.²
q A savage place! as holy and enchantedAs e¹er beneath a waning moon was hauntedBy woman wailing for her demon-lover!Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Wax (in the context of the phrase ³wax and wane,² not ³what bees produce² or ³to polish²) means the opposite of wane: ³to grow gradually larger; to increase in strength or size.²
q Mankind, let us hope, will dwindle and die more contented than it ever was when it waxed and struggled‹George Santayana
Both wax and wane are most often used to refer to the fullness of the moon, but they can and do appear in statements such as these: His anger waxed strong and then subsided. My enthusiasm for your plan is beginning to wane.
q Nothing that is can pause or stay;The moon will wax, the moon will wane,The mist and cloud will turn to rain,The rain to mist and cloud again,To-morrow be today. ‹Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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wander / wonder
Wander (among other meanings) means ³to travel aimlessly.²
q Not all who wander are lost.‹J.R.R. Tolkien
Wonder (among other meanings) means ³to consider or question some issue.²
q Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other.‹Katharine Hepburn
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weak / week
Weak means ³lacking strength, power, force² (and has other meanings).
q The weak are more likely to make the strong weak than the strong are likely to make the weak strong.‹Marlene Dietrich
A week is a period of seven days.
q A week is a long time in politics.‹Harold Wilson
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wean
Wean means:
m in the literal sense, to accustom young mammals to gain nourishment from sources other than nursing
m in the figurative, to detach from a source of dependence, to accustom anyone to leaving an old set of circumstances or conditions
m There is an odd, relatively new figurative sense meaning ³to be raised and nourished on² as in students weaned on the computer. (Although used earlier, this was not commonly seen in print until the 1970s.) The justification of this last usage is that the process of weaning involves a substitution of some other form of nourishment: accustoming someone from one thing to another. Thus the phrase students weaned on the computer suggests the students¹ exposure to computers began almost as soon as they stopped nursing.
We don¹t care who finds this to be acceptable hyperbole, we reject it. Yes, in some instances this figurative use does make sense. When Alice Roosevelt Longworth said Calvin Coolidge ³looks as if he had been weaned on a pickle² she was referring to a face that looked like that of a child being accustomed to a sour, strange new food.² When Helen Hayes said she was ³was weaned on grease-paint² she was accustomed to greasepaint at an extremely early age. In 1932, when a humorist wrote of babies ³being weaned on aspirin to fortify them for the economic headaches they will certainly face,² it was meant in the same sense as Helen Hayes later used it. But when Frank Sinatra said, in 1954, ³I was weaned on the best popular music ever written,² he probably meant ³raised on,² not ³accustomed to.² We feel using the phrase ³weaned on² as synonymous with ³raised on² is unacceptable. These examples, taken from the Web, should have used raised rather than weaned:
q A generation weaned on the legitimacy of black protest...
q There is a generation of computer users throughout the world that have been weaned on the Internet...
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q [Rhythm guitarist] John worked at and was weaned on all the Merseybeat clubs in Liverpool...
q Gen Y, weaned on the technology Gen X discovered, is a market to be reckoned with.
q Some weaned on Star Trek might imagine other Earth-like planets with beings going about their daily lives...
q It refers to musicians weaned on punk...
q We were weaned on the ³duck and cover² method of atomic weaponry survival...
Using weaned on in these two examples, is probably acceptable:
q Think nightmarish Dickensian street urchins weaned on methamphetamine and hell-bent on chaos...
q [V]astly increasing the emotional resonance for an audience weaned on the Bard...
However, if you mean ³raised on,² we suggest you use that phrase rather than ³weaned on.²
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weather / whether
Weather (primarily) refers to climate.
q You don¹t need a weather man to know which way the wind blows.‹Bob Dylan
Whether is a conjunction that precedes the first of two choices.
q Morning comes whether you set the alarm or not.‹Ursula K. LeGuin
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while / whilst
In British English these are interchangeable, with whilst probably considered the more formal. Although whilst pops up in American English, while is the most commonly used by far. In the U.S. you probably risk sounding somewhat pretentious using it.
q While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.‹Leonardo da Vinci
q It is not necessary that whilst I live I live happily; but it is necessary that so long as I live I should live honourably.‹Immanuel Kant
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whiskey / whisky
q Tell me what brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals‹Abraham Lincoln
q Logic, like whisky, loses its beneficial effect when taken in too large quantities.Lord Dunsany
The original Gaelic name for the strong alcoholic distillate made from a fermented mash of grain was usquebaug, uisgebaugh, using beatha, uisgebeatha, uisce beatha, uisge beatha, or, well, you get the idea. Whether we spell it whiskey or whisky in English we¹re better off than trying the Gaelic. The Gaelic name was derived from the Latin aqua vitae or ³water of life.² (Scandinavian countries have aquavit, vodka started as zhizennia voda, some brandies or ports are called eau-de-vie‹they all mean ³water of life.²) In the 18th century the Gaelic term somehow became usky, then whiskey or whisky.
Distinctions, at least in the U.S. (in England and Canada it¹s all whisky), in the two spellings evidently arose early in the 20th century and have not always been consistently used since then.
True Scotch whisky‹capital S, lowercase w, and no e in whisky‹is distilled in Scotland from barley that has been warmed with burning peat bricks. (This helps give it an intense smoky flavor.) Any other similar beverage made elsewhere is whiskey with an e. When referring to scotch in general it is scotch with a lowercase s.
q For her fifth wedding, the bride [Barbara Hutton ] wore black and carried a scotch and soda.‹Phyllis Battelle
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whither / wither
Whither is an adverb meaning ³to what place² or ³to what point, conclusion, or end.²
q Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?‹Jack Kerouac
Wither means ³to become dry and sapless; to shrivel from or as if from loss of moisture.² By extension it means ³to lose vitality, force, or freshness.²
q Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety.‹William Shakespeare
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who / whom
Most every guide to the use of who and whom will tell you it is ³simple² to sort out. It is‹for some people. Those familiar with German or Latin are used to dealing with case forms like accusative and dative. They probably consider who/whom to be simple. For those of us who have trouble dealing with English alone, the prevalent meaning of ³case forms² has something to do with a document with spaces in which to write. ³Simply² explaining Who is used for the subjective case, whereas whom is used for the objective case doesn¹t fill any blanks in most of our brains.
The problem is that few of us grew up spontaneously using whom. Using whom now requires mental effort. Expending effort of any sort is not generally favored by most of us, especially writers. Some hope the linguists who claim that whom is ³dying out² are correct and that, with a little patience, the issue can be avoided altogether. Get real. Whom has been officially dying now since at least 1870. The word has yet to start singing its last act aria as far as we can tell.
In daily speech and informal writing, you can use who most of the time. We feel that even informally, however, we should all remember to at least use whom after a preposition‹even if people think you are strange. In formal writing you will occasionally need to use whom, so here are some tips.
Who is the subjective form of the pronoun (like he/she/they). Whom is the objective form (the direct or indirect object‹like him/her/them). Who is used when it is the subject of the sentence and whom is used when it is the object.
Who went to the party last night?
(Who is the subject of the sentence.)
That blonde who dated Jason was there.
(Who stands for the subject of dated Jason.)
Who do you think is going Friday?
(Who stands for the subject of is going Friday)
Jason forgot to whom he sent invitations.
(Whom is the object of the preposition to.)
Surely that blonde whom we all thought was a bimbo will not show up.
(Whom is the object of the verb thought.)
Problems begin to arise with sentences like: Whom do you want to call? Whom is the object of call, so this sentence is correct. It doesn¹t seem ³right² to us because we are used to sentences beginning with subjects rather than objects. Most people would say Who do you want to call? In every usage but the most formal, this colloquial exchange of who and whom is now fairly well accepted.
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Another problem: With a sentence like I saw the man whom Anna had tried to get Jennifer to date last summer‹we have to exert that mental effort and think far enough ahead to know that whom will be the object of the verb date (which is a couple of clauses away). If you were writing it you¹d at least have a chance to sort it out, but chances are you aren¹t going to say whom, even if it is correct.
When in doubt, try substituting the pronoun (he/him or she/he) for who/whom. If he or she is correct, then use who; if it¹s him or her, then use whom. This can be easy:
Who/Who called the cops?
He called the cops. (he=who; so‹)
Correct: Who called the cops?
It can involve some word-juggling:
Jason is the dude with who/whom I went clubbing with last week.
I went clubbing with him. (him=whom; so‹)
Correct: Jason is the dude whom I went clubbing with last week.
This sentence¹s subject is separated from its subject by a clause:
The guy standing over there (who/whom) is not someone I know called the police.
The guy ... called the police.=He called the police. (he=who; so‹)
Correct: The guy standing over there who is not someone I know called the police
Chances are you can think of a dozen ways to avoid constructing sentences as graceless as those last two examples and avoid the who/whom decision altogether.
q The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.‹Mark Twain
q Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad.Euripides
Note: The rules governing the use of who and whom apply equally to whoever and whomever and are ignored just as often in speech and informal writing.
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who¹s / whose
Who¹s is a contraction of the phrase who is or the phrase who has.
q The enemy is anybody who¹s going to get you killed, no matter which side he¹s on.‹Joseph Heller
Whose is the possessive form of who.
q Never eat at a place called ³Moms.² Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.‹William Penn
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widow / widower
When a man dies, his wife becomes a widow; when a woman dies, her husband becomes a widower. In obituaries, a man is survived by his wife or his widow, but a woman is survived by her husband, not her widower. We don¹t know why. Either the wife of the late Mr. Dahlby or the widow of Mr. Dahlby is correct, but the widow of the late Mr. Smith is redundant and, therefore, incorrect. People who remarry are no longer widows or widowers. Former spouses are not widows or widowers.
q Memory, in widow¹s weeds, with naked feet stands on a tombstone.Sir Aubrey de Vere
q Whoever marries the spirit of this age will find himself a widower in the next.William Ralph Inge
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wreath / wreathe
Wreath [ree-(with the) th (voiced)] is a noun meaning ³something entertwined into a circular shape.²
q She wore a wreath of roses
The first night that we met.‹Thomas Haynes Bayly
Wreathe [ree-(with the) th (unvoiced)] is a verb meaning ³envelop, surround, or encircle.²
q LAUREL, n. The laurus, a vegetable dedicated to Apollo, and formerly defoliated to wreathe the brows of victors and such poets as had influence at court.‹Ambrose Bierce
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