Week 4

Homophones, Homonyms and Homographs

When the question about the differences between homophones, homonyms and homographs came up last week, I was unsure of the answer. Homophone is one of those terms that I have only learned about in passing; none of my teachers have ever spent more than a few minutes talking about it. As a result, I was unsure of the difference between the three terms. I did not realize that all of these terms existed.

Homophones are words that sound the same, but are spelled differently and have different meanings. For example: sail- going out on a boat and sale- the exchanging of goods for money.

Homonyms are words that sound and are spelled the same way, but have completely different meanings, such as the word “bark.” “Bark” is the sound a dog makes and also the outer exterior of a tree.

Homographs are spelled the same, but have different pronunciations and meanings.

Bass can be pronounced \’bas\ or \bās\. The first pronunciation is a fish. The second pronunciation is a low sound or range, or a label given to men who sing the low notes in a choir.

My technical writing professor put this comic strip on his Canvas home page.

This comic strip takes grammar to a whole new level. Square four should read: “You’re coughing up blood! I didn’t know allergies could cause such a bad effect.” Square five should read: “Are there others like you? Looks like it’s getting worse!” I would also say there are too many exclamation marks. I did not fix all the errors, but this comic strip illustrates what happens when grammatical errors start to pile up.