「want」と「won't」の違い

A tiny bit of nostalgia for my youth led to me making BBQ sandwiches. These sandwiches are full of mock BBQ chicken, made from strips of fried tofu and homemade Texas-style barbecue sauce.

• nostalgia 【名】懐旧、懐古の情、ノスタルジア・郷愁、望郷の念 (definition from Eijiro on the Web)

× Somehow I won't to eat BBQ sauce these days.

○ Somehow I want to eat BBQ sauce these days.

I think it's because of the really good BBQ tempe that I had at this vegetarian restaurant in NYC back when I visited in March:

http://nymag.com/listings/restaurant/bliss/

× I want live in NYC again, I think...
○ I won't live in NYC again, I think...

... but that is a great restaurant!

In the sentences above, people who are listening sometimes get confused between the two. That's dangerous, because the meanings are very different. However, it should be simple to tell which is being used. There are two reasons.

The first is the difference in pronunciation:

want ~ taunt, flaunt, font. This is an "ah" sound in American English.

won't ~ This is an "oh" sound in American English.

The second difference is in grammar. "Won't" is an auxiliary verb, so it's never followed by "to". "Want" is a regular verb, so when a verb comes after it, you have to use "to" first.

I won't use the same recipe for barbecue sauce next time. This one was good, but not as rich or deep as I had wanted to eat.