wough: a wall
wangle: to obtain through fraud, manipulation, or persuasion
wrangle: (1) to obtain through arguing, pleading, or bargaining; (2) to debate or quarrel; or (3) to herd animals or gather information
It’s a tricky pair because they look alike and have similar meanings. In some contexts they may be nearly interchangeable, but they’re not generally so. I am guessing definition #1 of wrangle has been influenced by confusion with wangle, but I haven’t looked into it.
There’s also “otiose”: pointless or useless. The “ti” is a “sh,” as in “nation,” and it’s actually pronounced OH-shus, but I have seen people encounter it their first time in print, and mistake it for “odious.”
Then there is “woah,” which is not a word, but I see it all the time.
The OED does list woa, woah, and wo as variants of whoa.
hookah: a water-pipe
hooker: a prostitute, thief, rugby player, fishing boat, type of pot, dram of whisky… [also a variant spelling of hookah according to the OED]
gear: wheels working one upon the other, by means of teeth or otherwise
cog: one of those teeth
sprocket: a wheel, or one of the projections from the wheel, that engages with the links of a chain
awaken: to rouse into activity, rouse from sleep
awake: to come out of sleep
woke : no two people agree on a definition.
Hence the mortal rivalry between Spacely Sprockets and Cogswell Cogs.
That reminds me of another one a friend of the family kept getting hilariously wrong when I was in high school:
winch: a kind of machine with a crank, used for hoisting or hauling heavy loads
wench: old-fashioned or rude term for a woman
You can use a wench or a winch to bring another wench aboard. One’s bait, the other’s a crane.
Many confuse Customs and Immigration.
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Immigration will inspect your passport and other travel documents. They’re concerned with who you are and don’t give a crap about what you’re bringing with you. If they don’t like your face they’ll turn you back right then and there.
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Customs will inspect your belongings to ensure you’re not bringing in illegal goods or contraband. They’ll also assess value of your items and levy any appropriate import duties. Customs comes after immigration so as long as you’re not carrying anything illegal, then they cannot deny you entry, just confiscate your goods if you refuse or are unable to pay.
Wrench: a spanner.
All true. And in some countries two separate bureaucracies administer & enforce those two processes. In some countries it’s just one bureaucracy / police force for both. if the latter, calling the process by the agency’s name, whatever that is, seems sensible.
I suspect that most English speakers call the whole process “Customs” because that’s the shortest of the 3 likely alternative terms: “Customs”, “Immigration”, “Customs and Immigration”.
What’s funny to me is that in English the complete term seems to be “customs and immigration”, never “immigration and customs”. Yet as you say, immigration comes first and customs second as you process into the country.
Nobel: dynamite guy
Noble: bookstore guy
For the US, at least, I often see both immigration and customs combined into one term, FIS, meaning Federal Inspection Service.
“FIS” is actually the initialism for the "Federal Inspection Services, which is everybody who has statutory authority to poke and prod at folks crossing the border.
So that’s Customs, and also Immigration, who’ve been combined since 2002 as ICE = Immigrations and Customs Enforcement as part of the formation of the Department of Homeland Security. Plus US Department of Agriculture APHIS and US Dept of HHS Public Heath division enforcement folks.
core: the heart or centre of something
corps: an organized group of people
corpse: a dead body
weld: a joint of two materials
weald: a forest
wield: to control or possess
wold: a forest, a hill, a plain
Caw: a crow call
Cor: an expression of surprise or wonder; short for “Cor Blimey!”
Corr: One of The Corrs
Also:
corvid from the Latin for “crow”. Not to be confused with
COVID from Coronavirus Disease
peak: a high point (or verb: to come to a high point)
peek: a surreptitious look (or verb to take a surreptitious look)
pique: irritation or resentment (or verb: to arouse (interest or curiousity or irritation or resentment))
peke: a type of dog (short for Pekingese)