HOMOPHONES: A SNARE FOR THE UNWARY

 

Homophones are the terror of poor spellers: words that have the same pronunciation but different meanings and spellings.

‘David is rite when he says Peter is rich’ sounds the same as ‘David is write when he says Peter is rich,’ but our sight tells us that the correct form is ‘David is right when he says…’. The sounds are identical, but the meanings and spellings are different.

Here/hear; hair/hare; week/weak; pair/pare/pear… and many more.

In Spanish, examples include hecho/echo; hola/ola; vello/bello; haber/a ver… and, for those who do not pronounce the Castilian /θ/ sound, caza/casa; cocer/coser.

This is not a trivial matter of grammar or spelling; it signals to others that we belong to the intellectually below-the-salt type of people.