I stumbled upon this word lately, as in
he was wont to come early
I'm wondering what feeling it has for native speakers.
For example, can I use in a meeting, or in a written report?
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4You won't want to use wont, too often.– Phillip NganCommented Nov 9, 2011 at 3:01
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3 Answers
I am a native speaker (American) and I rarely see this word used other than in literature or poetry. Perhaps native speakers from other countries can weigh in, but I would not use it in a meeting or written report. The most common usage I have seen, which is considered either formal or humorous (according to the Dictionary app on my Mac), is in a sentence such as the following: Reginald added just a few drops of milk to his tea, as was his wont.
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3I agree, and would only add that this word would sound out of place unless the meeting or report in question would be targeting an audience of professors of English. +1– RobustoCommented Dec 4, 2010 at 14:07
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ahaha! good to know. Not being native speaker sometimes put me in an inferiority complex...– UbertoCommented Dec 4, 2010 at 14:25
In Australia it has a ring of formality, but you do hear it from time to time, though perhaps a touch idiomatically - '..., as he is wont' and the like probably occur a good ten times as frequently as 'He is wont to...'.
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3Agree completely - wont is far from unknown, but these days it's normally as a self-conscious / quirky / idiomatic usage. And when it is used, it's far more likely to be as is his wont, or as he is wont [to do] tacked on to the end of a statement, rather than at the start. Perhaps because we half expect listeners to be slightly fazed by it, so we want to get in the thing we're really saying first. Commented Jan 3, 2012 at 0:08
"xyz, as is his wont"
remains a pretty typical/common form these days
