Homonyms

The last post mentioned a type of word that can be tricky—it changes by changing which syllable gets the accent. Here’s another tricky type of word, homonyms. Different spelling, different meaning, but same pronunciation.

Here’s a good example:

Got any favorite homonyms? Feel free to mention them in the comments.

PS—and for good measure, here’s a test. In the box on the right—is that a homonym?

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The comic is about a little girl who’s afraid of her grandmother’s big dog…

As you can see, the change in punctuation makes a difference. When you write, think about the punctuation!

Okay, now a test. How should you punctuate the labels?

The humor is bad, but I approve of Mr. Thaves calling them malaprops instead of “malapropisms.”

…but he put “only” in the correct place, (next-to-last panel). But he should have said “The deck had” instead of “there were.”

Sandhi is a Sanskrit word meaning “a putting together.” We get our word (ice cream) “sundae” from “sandhi.” Technically, the word refers to the effect that the end of one word has on the beginning of the next. This happens all the time in Sanskrit, I’m told, and sometimes in spoken English. (I suppose the choice of whether to use “a” or “an” before a word could be attributed to sandhi.)

Anyway, here’s a good example of using sandhi to make a joke.

You do know the scout motto, right?

Idioms are phrases in a language not meant to be taken literally. When we don’t understand something, we might say “It’s Greek to me,” whereas in Germany you’d say (in German) “It’s a Bohemian village to me.”

Here are some idioms whose meanings depend on context:

What are your favorite idioms? Feel free to put some in the comments.

This post first appeared on The Writing Rag.