Saipan is a linguistic crossroads, and a student of English asked me to list some words that sound the same but which have different spellings and meanings. That\u2019s a big deal, given that most of us probably write from phonetic memory. This steers us into the maw of computerized word-checking where we get green flags for the wrong word. Yes indeed, \u201cSpell Czech is grate!”<\/p>\n
English is full of these sneaky words. In fact, as I just discovered, it\u2019s so full of these words that there\u2019s not enough space in this column to list them. Yikes! <\/p>\n
Indeed, once I unleashed the language spider on a random crawl through my brain, the sneaky words just kept on popping up. The project hijacked my entire day. So I beamed the brain spider into my editor\u2019s brain, too; it\u2019s my way of sticking it to the Man. <\/p>\n
The list, as it stands now, is 131 words. It will surely creep up over the next few days as the brain spiders keep crawling, and they\u2019ll do that, whether we want them to or not. <\/p>\n
I\u2019ll print the first part of the list today. Then I\u2019ll either publish the second half in this space next week or maybe I\u2019ll just put it on my website. I haven\u2019t decided yet. <\/p>\n
Incidentally, I\u2019m excluding proper nouns (e.g. Maine, Gayle, etc.). And this is just a mental exercise; recourse to a dictionary or reference would probably uncover thousands of these sneaky words, but that would take the fun out of it. This is brain-spider turf, not an exhaustive list.<\/p>\n
So here we go:
\n1).Here, hear
\n2).Their, there
\n3). Plane, plain; I\u2019ve flown some plain planes.
\n4). Two, too, to; the infamous sneaky triple
\n5). Hare, hair; \u201charebrained\u201d
\n6). Great, grate
\n7). Do, dew, due
\n8). Write, right, rite; \u201crite of passage\u201d
\n9). Role, roll
\n10). Male, mail
\n11). Mall, maul
\n12). Your, you\u2019re; simple but often messed up
\n13). Bore, boar. Also: bored, board.
\n14). Hi, high
\n15). Piece, peace
\n16). Tail, tale
\n17). Aye, I, eye
\n18). Son, sun
\n19). Pee, pea; a distinction that fueled many a joke in second grade.
\n20). So, sew
\n21). Bare, bear; third grade for these jokes.
\n22). Night, knight
\n23). In, inn
\n24). Wood, would
\n25). Hey, hay; \u201chey\u201d isn\u2019t much of a word so maybe this shouldn\u2019t count.
\n26). Where, ware, wear; \u201cwarehouse\u201d
\n27). Pare, pair, pear
\n28). See, sea
\n29). Nose, knows
\n30). Pail, pale
\n31). Blue, blew
\n32). Dear, deer
\n33). Fourth, forth; these two are easy to mix up.
\n34). Main, mane
\n35). Rode, road; these seem to go together nicely.
\n36). Lode, load; the \u201cMother Lode\u201d started the gold rush.
\n37). Wry, rye
\n38). Vise, vice
\n39). Know, no
\n40). Pain, pane
\n41). Whole, hole
\n42). Moat, mote
\n43). Might, mite
\n44). Four, fore, for
\n45). Sine, sign; can you \u201ccosine\u201d for a loan?
\n46). Wine, whine
\n47). Bee, be
\n48). Lead, led
\n49). Red, read
\n50). Wet, whet; \u201cwhet the appetite\u201d
\n51). Toe, tow; \u201ctoe the line\u201d
\n52). Not, knot
\n53). Need, knead, kneed
\n54). Doe, dough
\n55). Days, daze
\n56). Die, dye
\n57). Witch, which
\n58). Principal, principle; this one is tricky.
\n59). Capitol, capital; one squanders the other!
\n60). Damn, dam
\n61). Flea, flee
\n62). Gait, gate
\n63). Tare, tear
\n64). Wait, weight
\n65). Site, sight, cite; a very insidious triple-sneak.
\nThat will do it for today. By now the spider has been implanted in your brain, too; it\u2019s my way of sticking it to the Reader.<\/p>\n
[I]Visit Ed Stephens Jr. at [URL=”http:\/\/tropicaled.com”]TropicalEd.com[\/URL]. Ed is a pilot, economist, and writer. He holds a degree in economics from UCLA and is a former U.S. naval officer. His column runs every Friday. [\/I]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saipan is a linguistic crossroads, and a student of English asked me to list some words that sound the same but which have different spellings and meanings. That\u2019s a big deal, given that most of us probably write from phonetic memory. This steers us into the maw of computerized word-checking where we get green flags for the wrong word. Yes indeed, \u201cSpell Czech is grate!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}