"Wreaking havoc" vs. "wrecking havoc"

by James K. Sayre

Yesterday, I heard two educated television announcers use the phrase "wrecking havoc" instead of the proper traditional "wreaking havoc." One man was the hurricane expert on the Weather Channel and the other man was the interviewer on a CSPAN book show. Both of these men have at least undergraduate college degrees. But with popular culture and television and now the Internet, sloppiness seems to be the order of the day.

Maybe it was the years I worked as a technical writer and tried to ensure that my finished work included traditional and proper usage of words and phrases.

Maybe it was the years of study in high school and college where I was forced to learn how to express myself clearly in my writing. Maybe it the decades of reading and writing letters to the editor in and to newspapers. But I still watch for sloppy and lazy use of our English language.

11 July 2005

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