Looking Askance
Paul Brians' "Common Errors in English" is a useful website, even if I don't always agree with what he thinks. Here's something with which I do agree, except for the last bit, which is an optimistic opinion I don't share.
People sometimes write “weary” (tired) when they mean “wary” (cautious) which is a close synonym with “leery” which in the psychedelic era was often misspelled “leary”; but since Timothy Leary faded from public consciousness, the correct spelling has prevailed.
Oh, how I wish I could believe that!
Just a couple of days ago I saw in a TV news headline the word "leary" when "leery" was what they were looking for. It seems to be a very common misuse: Googling "leary of" gives 304,000 hits, and even if half of them are sentences such as "Inhofe falsely accused Hazel O'Leary of leaking classified information...", that still leaves a depressingly large number of incorrect usages: "was leary of" gives over fifteen thousand hits, all of which must perforce be wrong. Even Time Magazine once made the mistake, for which there's really no excuse.
You may suspect that "leery" is a descendant of "leer" (it was my first guess, because it's so obvious), and you'd be right. An earlier meaning of "leer", somewhat more innocent than today's lascivious grimace, was merely "a sideways glance", which is to say a rather suspicious look. So if you're leery of something, you're looking at it with suspicion.
People sometimes write “weary” (tired) when they mean “wary” (cautious) which is a close synonym with “leery” which in the psychedelic era was often misspelled “leary”; but since Timothy Leary faded from public consciousness, the correct spelling has prevailed.
Oh, how I wish I could believe that!
Just a couple of days ago I saw in a TV news headline the word "leary" when "leery" was what they were looking for. It seems to be a very common misuse: Googling "leary of" gives 304,000 hits, and even if half of them are sentences such as "Inhofe falsely accused Hazel O'Leary of leaking classified information...", that still leaves a depressingly large number of incorrect usages: "was leary of" gives over fifteen thousand hits, all of which must perforce be wrong. Even Time Magazine once made the mistake, for which there's really no excuse.
You may suspect that "leery" is a descendant of "leer" (it was my first guess, because it's so obvious), and you'd be right. An earlier meaning of "leer", somewhat more innocent than today's lascivious grimace, was merely "a sideways glance", which is to say a rather suspicious look. So if you're leery of something, you're looking at it with suspicion.
posted by pyramus | 9:26 PM
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