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Iv'e seen both spellings of the phrase. Is one correct and the other incorrect or are they both acceptable? Does one belong to British English?

Mark
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2 Answers2

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"Ware off" is simply incorrect regardless of whether we're talking British or American English. It is not in use at all.

See: http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=wear+off%2C+ware+off&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

Jeremy
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  • That's what I thought, but after I saw it appear once on a website I searched it on google and it came up with over 150,00 hits! Check for yourself - lots of people are spelling it like that. – Mark Sep 11 '11 at 08:18
  • @Mark A couple of million Google hits for "Currently online now", which is redundant in most of the cases: http://english.stackexchange.com/q/41251/10341 – rems Sep 11 '11 at 09:08
  • internet - a faster and more powerful way for the blind to lead the blind. in other words, yes, 150,000 people CAN be wrong! – Brian Hitchcock Feb 17 '15 at 08:15
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I have always used the assimilation factor of the proper use of this phrase: If anything were to be "worn off"? Then in relation to its friend, would be to "wear off." So....I'd go with "wear off". d*

simoncircus
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