Talk:wreak

Wrought

Wrought is a valid alternative to wreaked.

I have seen both used. Paul Willocx 08:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• No. wrought is the past tense and past participle of the verb to work. And also a derived adjective (e.g. wrought iron). SemperBlotto 08:48, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's right to describe it as "erroneous" though, as it is commonly used. Erroneous etymology, perhaps. 81.142.107.230 14:11, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

• The error is thinking wrought havoc is a past tense of wreak havoc. It is the past tense of work havoc which is also a set phrase (per the Oxford Dict. Online, wreak)) which states:

The phrase wrought havoc, as in they wrought havoc on the countryside, is an acceptable variant of wreaked havoc. Here, wrought is an archaic past tense of work. It is not, as is sometimes assumed, a past tense of wreak.

I did an ngram on wreak havoc and work havoc and, or many years, work havoc topp'd "wreak havoc". Along with the aforemention'd quote from the Oxford Dict. Online, I found this by M-W:

I also found sundry byspels of "work havoc" in Google Books. Anyway, it all points to that wrought is not a past tense for wreak. At least not in wrought havoc.--AnWulf ... Ferþu Hal! (talk) 19:53, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

I think how wrought is currently listed as the simple past/participle along with wreaked is misleading, in light of the general agreement here that it's not correct, and the fact it has not really seen any official acceptance. Despite this, it's probably still worth mentioning it, as it is in use, but maybe it should be marked informal or something else to indicate that it's poor usage and would generally be proscribed.Davecw (talk) 03:25, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

The use of "wrought havoc" is accepted, as shown above. So basically the argument is that you may use it, but in order to have that permission you must know in your heart that it is actually the past tense of "work havoc". That's kind of metaphysical. The point is that the two expressions were merged such that "wrought" has now been reinterpreted a past form of "wreak". If anything, I think purists should be thankful that such a nice and ancient form has found a refuge here, rather than lament it. 84.57.154.13 23:56, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Pronunciation

If all the words "wreak" derives from (in various languages) had an "e" vowel, how did "wreak" eventually get an "ee" sound? 173.88.241.33 02:15, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Because that's what always happens in English. All words with "ea" and "ee" originally had an "e"-like sound. That's why the letter "e" was used in them in the first place. Then the pronunciation changed, but the spelling remained the same. 84.57.154.13 00:00, 15 February 2022 (UTC)