12 January 2012
Image by Noel Reynolds
Actually, I won’t be telling you a tale here (about bird tails or anything else).
Instead, we’ll look at ‘homonyms’ – words that have the same sound and/or spelling, but have different meanings.
Homonyms are very easy to confuse – and it happens to everyone. (I found one while proofreading this post. Hope I caught them all before publishing!)
There are two categories of homonyms:
· homophones (words that sound alike but are spelled differently), for example ‘tale’ and ‘tail’
· homographs (words that sound alike and are spelled the same but have different meanings), for example ‘bear’ (the verb meaning to carry) and ‘bear’ (the animal)
Some commonly confused homonyms
I won’t bore you with a long list of homonyms, but just give you a few used in business writing that cause problems.
· principle/principal—a principle (noun) is a rule; principal (adj) means the main or most important. [Tip: For that ‘most important person’ at school, remember this sentence: The Principal is not our pal.]
· imminent/eminent—eminent (adj) means distinguished; imminent (adj) means likely to happen soon [Tip: ‘Imminent’ sounds like ‘in a minute’.]
· stationary/stationery—you buy stationery (writing materials) at a stationer’s shop; stationary (adj) means unmoving.
· there/their/they’re—Among the most commonly confused homonyms, where most mistakes are usually careless. (Tip: Remember this sentence: They’re going over there to get their books.]
· accept/except—accept (verb) means to take in; except (prep/conj) means but not or not including.
· discreet/discrete—discreet (adj) means tactful, not attracting attention; discrete (adj) means distinct or separate, as in discrete points on a curve.
· lead/led/lead—lead (verb) means to guide; its past tense form ‘led’ is pronounced the same as the metal ‘lead’. This is probably why so many people confuse those two.
Using the wrong homonym is where a spellchecker can’t help you. So when you proofread, keep this in mind.
Resource
If you’d like to see more homonyms that cause problems, go here: