The proper phrase, of course, is to "wreak havoc," but after seeing the homonym used in its place yesterday, I decided to look up the phrase.
A Google search is a decidedly blunt instrument to investigate frequency of usage*, but a quick check yesterday yielded 600,000 hits for "reek havoc" vs 6,000,000 for "wreak havoc." So it's not a grossly misused term.
But "wreak" is in itself an interesting word. Here's an abbreviated summary from Wiktionary:
Etymology: Old English wrecan... from Proto-Indo-European *wreg- (“work, do”). Cognate with German rächen, Swedish vräka... and distantly cognate to English wreck.
Verb:
wreak... simple past wreaked, wrought (erroneously), or rarely wroke
Definition: To cause, inflict or let out, especially if causing harm or injury... (archaic) To inflict or take vengeance on.
So what can you wreak? Again, just from Google - havoc, damage, destruction, revenge, devastation, mayhem, pain, terror, carnage, toll, fury, Hell, chaos, and genocide.
*any suggestions for a better tool to use for this?
Not quite what you're looking for, but a nice tool nonetheless: http://tx0.org/v9
ReplyDeleteThat's from books, but it will certainly do for a start. Thank you, John.
DeleteCalls to mind someone telling me about his band's latest performance many years ago. He said they "reeked" and either my expression or a dramatic pause made him clarify that they "wreaked havoc."
ReplyDeleteI don't know of a freely available tool, but I believe language scholars have access to databases of digitized periodicals and the like that they use to count word frequency as a function of time.
ReplyDeleteHuh, you learn something new every day. I certainly thought the past tense was "wrought".
ReplyDeleteSo did I. As in, "What hath God wrought?"
DeleteSwift, I think that's an example of "wrought" being used as the past tense of "work." (like "wrought iron" if I remember correctly)
Delete"wreak
ReplyDeleteO.E. wrecan "avenge," originally "to drive, drive out, punish" (class V strong verb; past tense wræc, pp. wrecen), from P.Gmc. *wrekanan (cf. O.S. wrekan, O.N. reka, O.Fris. wreka, M.Du. wreken "to drive, push, compel, pursue, throw," O.H.G. rehhan, Ger. rächen "to avenge," Goth. wrikan "to persecute"), from PIE base *werg- "to work, to do" (cf. Lith. vergas "distress," vergas "slave," O.C.S. vragu "enemy," L. urgere; see urge (v.)). Meaning "inflict or take vengeance," with on, is recorded from late 15c.; that of "inflict or cause (damage or destruction)" is attested from 1817."
from:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=w&p=15&allowed_in_frame=0
"The “number of results” count that Google gives when you search is clearly fabricated."
ReplyDeleteRandall Munroe of xkcd
http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/02/04/trochee-chart/
Also, the tool he links to might be useful.
DeleteHere's a way to examine trends in google search terms:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.google.com/trends/?q=definitely,+definately
Well, sort of... Google Trends displays search trends (i.e. user types in "definitely" or "definately" and the relative number of times that occurs is what your graph shows).
DeleteSlightly more exact results (+/- within an order of magnitude) can be obtained from the Google Keyword Tool (as with Google Trends, these figures represent Local and Global searches, not web corpus ngrams).
M'Stan, do you know about this site?
ReplyDeletehttp://eggcorns.lascribe.net/index.php?s=wreak
"Reek havoc" is what's known as an eggcorn. This site elucidates a whole batch of them. The link above is to the page with "reek havoc" on it--scroll down to find the entry.
I'm somewhat familiar witih eggcorns, but was unaware of that site. Tx.
Delete