Homophones and sound-alikes can often reek — or is it wreck or wreak? — havoc. In each phrase that follows, choose the preferred spelling:

1. anchors away/aweigh
   
2. to wait with baited/bated breath
   
3. to grin and bare/bear it
   
4. sound bite/byte
   
5. bloc/block voting
   
6. a ceded/seeded player
   
7. champing/chomping at the bit
   
8. a full complement/compliment of
   
9. to strike a responsive chord/cord
   
10. just deserts/desserts
    
11. doesn’t faze/phase me
    
12. to have a flair/flare for
    
13. foul/fowl weather
    
14. hail/hale and hardy/hearty
    
15. a hair’s/hare’s breadth/breath
    
16. a seamless hole/whole
    
17. a friend in need is a friend in deed/indeed
    
18. to declare it doesn’t jibe/jive
    
19. on the lam/lamb
    
20. to the manner/manor born/borne
    
21. marshal/martial law
    
22. to test one’s medal/meddle/metal/mettle
    
23. might/mite and mane/main
    
24. beyond the pale/pail
    
25. to peak/peek/pique one’s interest
    
26. pi/pie in the sky
    
27. pidgin/pigeon English
    
28. plain/plane geometry
    
29. to pore/pour over an article
    
30. praying/preying mantis
    
31. a matter of principal/principle
    
32. rack/wrack one’s brain
    
33. to give free rain/reign/rein
    
34. raise/raze Cain/cane
    
35. to pay rapped/rapt/wrapped attention
    
36. with reckless/wreckless abandon
    
37. to reek/wreak/wreck havoc
    
38. right/rite of passage
    
39. a shoe-/shoo-in
    
40. to sic/sick the dog on someone
    
41. sleight/slight of hand
    
42. spit and/spitting image
    
43. the old stamping/stomping grounds
    
44. to stanch/staunch the flow
    
45. dire straights/straits
    
46. a toe-/tow-headed youth
    
47. to toe/tow the line
    
48. to swear like a trooper/trouper
    
49. all in vain/vane/vein
    
50. to wet/whet your appetite