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Grandpa Reminisces about Homonyms He’s Crossed
Ever start thinking about a subject and have your brain reply to a thought with an eyeroll and, “Yes, Grandpa, you have told us about that before.” I was thinking about homonyms, never mind why, and thinking how they must be the bane of most writers’ existences. They are certainly mine.
Now, everyone who writes knows to watch for the common combinations. They’re the ones people get berated for most often on Farcebook and Twender. You know the ones: they’re/there/their and your/you’re/yore. (In days or you’re we used that word a lot.) But there are so many more homonyms that writers stumble over. It’s (ooh, another pair: its/it’s) just the way the brain works while we are composing a bit of text. Once we learn to type at a decent speed, the brain starts to go on semi-automatic. Pull the trigger by thinking of a word and the hands type it out. Or they type something like the word out. Usually it is a homophone.
Homonyms come in two types: homophones and homographs. (“Yes, Grandpa, we know.”) Homophones sound alike, but are spelled differently, like the metal “lead” and the action an army officer might do in the past (passed?) tense, “led.” That is opposed to homographs, which are spelled the same, but are pronounced differently. But what really can drive a writer to drink is the homophones that have homographs and vice versa. Like “read” and “read.” These two words are pronounced just like “reed” and “red.” And then there is the truly dreaded combination of desserts/deserts. Desert is actually a pair (or technically a quadruplet) of homographs. There are two related words that have the first syllable accented, such as the Gobi Desert, and there are two words that have the second syllable accented, meaning either one’s deserved reward (just deserts) or the action of getting out of the area and leaving your buds to face the music without you. Then there is the treat we have after a meal, which is spelled “dessert,” but pronounced like the latter pair of “deserts.”
Some of my favorite things that I discovered to my horror that my brain and fingers have misaligned on were typing “clamor” when I meant “clamber” and “climate” when I meant “climb it.” To be fair, the ladder* (heh, heh) was during the Great Climate Hoax of the Twenty-First Century when we heard and saw that word, climate, every day multiple times per day. Have I ever mentioned that before? (“Yes, Grandpa.”)
What are your most troublesome sets of homophones?
* Note to Editors: If you correct this spelling, the joke goes away. Don’t be that editor.
Published in Group Writing
The Contranym.
A Homoant, a.k.a. BrundleFly.
Rein and reign
and rain.
Iam knot sew shore . . .
Just don’t confuse them with the Bretons of Brittany.
The very first Great Courses lectures I listened to was The History of the English Language by Seth Lerer. He gives a very good explanation why the English language is, for lack of a better expression, screwed up when it comes to spelling and pronunciation.
It’s all about who is in charge. Which reminds me of another of the apostrophe boys: whose and who’s.
Who are called that because they moved to Armorica from Britain.
Then shouldn’t it be “Bretony”?
Influenced by Froggy spelling and pronunciation. The Frogs are the reason that Stewart was changed to “Stuart,” so they would pronounce the name nearly correctly.
Just remember: French is what happens when Germans are utterly unable to pronounce Latin.
Correct.
Uh, I think it’s spelled ‘America’.
No, that’s the other side of the pond. Armorica.
And then there is Britonia.
Americans make fenders by putting metal in a mold, Brits use a mould.
It’s actually more of a die set. Molds are for forming molten or at least really soft materials, but dies are for stamping and pressing. And if you put your head into the die you will die. And after they metal is formed it is painted but the plastics in the dashboard are dyed after molding.
But only if it is in the stamping press, as opposed to having a stamp and being sent through the mail. That happens in Dilbia, I hear.
I got my moral education from Gordon R. Dickson.
Unless the stamp is printed on the envelope, in which case it is more colloquially called “franked”, which is opposed to being open about something, which is being frank, but if one is eating a particular type of bastardized northern German sausage then one is eating a frank, and if one is a far-Western German then one could also be a Frank.
And back to the envelope for some other back of the envelope thoughts – I should be open, er, frank, about opening your mail, but at least (unlike Percival) I’m not wearing mail while doing so.
So, you’re saying that a Western German sausage, with honestly described ingredients, and distributed via government paid postage, would be a franked frank Frank frank?
It would also be mouldy once the post office lost it.
Frankly, I’m disturbed by this turn of events.
I’ve been to Slovenia. I’ve been to Slavonia. But I’ve never been to Slovakia.
Capital and capitol! To establish St. Paul as the Capital of Minnesota was a capital idea! They meet in a building called a capitol. They have passed laws on capital punishment in the capitol building (located on Capitol Hill, natch).
There is also “principle” and “principal. I’ve gotten used to reading it, but it still grates. (“Grates” and “greats!” Less frequent, though.)
I got into an email argument with a colleague over one line in his report. “That should read ‘principal principle,’ not the other way around.”)
EDIT: Darn autocomplete.