And yes, they’re two different things—sort of.

They’re both part of an intriguing word stew which includes words that sound alike but may be spelled differently and have different meanings, or they could be spelled the same but carry entirely different meanings—understandably confusing.

For example, when alluding to an emergency medical technician who wrapped bandages around a patient’s wound, you might write “He wound the sterile gauze around the wound.” In this case “wound” is a homonym (or homograph): Two words which are spelled alike but are different in meaning or pronunciation.

What if they sound alike but are spelled differently and have different meanings, like “Mom said she was going to the store and was taking Billy, but I want to go too,” cried Susie. “I can’t take the two of you,” mom explained, “because I only have one car seat.” If you don’t see the homophones above then you might very well have participated in the mass pummeling of perhaps the most abused homophones: to, too, and two. Okay, two isn’t all that roughed up, but arguably to and too have bruises that may never heal. If these two simple homophones are misused, and published for all to see and read, you may very well have just quietly lost some readership

Our methods of written communication have evolved to the point that we’re allowing acronyms into our everyday vocabulary. I actually overheard someone say—out loud—“lol.” I kid you not! If you don’t know what it means, ask the nearest twelve-year-old or college student. If you do know, then you understand exactly what I’m saying. We’ve become so focused on brevity in our written communication that we’ve seemingly abdicated all care or concern for the proper use of homophones. To has become”2,” for has devolved to “4.” Elegance and correctness have toppled in favor of fewer keystrokes, and in many places around the Internet they stand boldly amongst all manner of public writing, in blogs, personals, even resumes posted on job sites.

If you’re going to write effectively you must also do so judiciously. Know the difference between there (location), their (plural possessive), and they’re (a contraction of they are).

• “Halt! Who goes there?”
• Where there’s smoke there’s fire.
• “True,” he stated with a grin, “sometimes the candidates let their mouths run ahead of their thoughts.”
• They’re currently debating the safe use of maple bats in major league baseball.

Now, mentally go back and plug in the wrong homophone in any of the above sentences and see what happens—the flow gets broken and you have to mentally stutter-step to grasp what was really meant before going forward. I’d say that’s a potential reader killer.

If you’re going to sit down and write a rant for your local paper’s op/ed page about your local team that has a penchant for losing, you may just curry a little more favor with the editor if you expound on how they lose instead of loose. You might lose your keys, or perhaps even your mind, but chances are pretty good you’re not going to 'loose' them. Clearly, homophones are here to help, not hurt.

Here are a few more you may have come across:

Bear = an animal; ursine; sometimes a tasty pastry, as in bear claw Danish.
Bare = bereft of any covering; naked

Affect = to change; in this context, a transitive verb:
People with fair skin are more affected by lengthy sun exposure than those of darker complexions.

Effect = result; also a transitive verb:
Overexposure to the sun affects fair-skinned people far more quickly than others, its effect rapidly changing skin tone from pale to pink.

Accept = to receive willingly
Except = to leave out; to exclude

Here’s a troublesome quartet: medal, metal, meddle, mettle. Those who grew up with Scooby Doo may remember this—“. . . and I would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids!” Notice, they’re not Olympic athletes, so they didn’t medal, nor were they involved in any kind of endurance or stamina trial, which would have tested their collective mettle; being made of celluloid they certainly were not metal.

This is a mere smattering of these linguistic gems. Search online to find more, they’re far more prevalent than you may think. Proper use of the right homophone or homonym can make a big difference to the quality of a read.

In case you were wondering, Emile Berliner was an immigrant inventor who gave us the gramophone, a flat-disk recording device which amplified the sound created by grooves in the aforementioned disk. Lest you think Thomas Edison or Alexander Graham Bell were responsible, know that they created the phonograph (a trademark name for the device, actually) and the graphophone, respectively--neither of which used flat disks for their recordings. It’s also worth noting that all three devices were used for the spoken word, not the written word, so they’re exempt from phone/-nym usage rules. At least now you know where the term “Grammys” came from.

So you see, it’s entirely possible to both inform and entertain.

© 2008 J.W. Nicklaus

J.W. Nicklaus is a twice-published poet and author of a new short-story collection The Light, The Dark, and Ember Between.