Yesterday I offered you some "big" words. Today, I have some "little" ones. Do you remember homonyms? Those pesky little words that sound exactly alike by are spelled in several different ways and had several different meanings? In grade school I had a teacher who loved them. During quite periods, she taught us to play a game in which we made up sentences containing homonyms but substituted the word "teakettle" for the words themselves. The challenge was for the other students to identify the missing homonym. The sentences sounded like this: "I teakettle would like teakettle eat teakettle pieces of cake."
The game was just childish silliness, but it's not funny when a writer gets wrapped up in her story and types one homonym for another without noticing. Maybe you are writing a sympathetic description of an admirable politician who suffered from great depravation -- or did you really mean to type deprivation? There's not a spell checker in the world who will catch an error like that. And there's no sure way to avoid making the occasional goof. About all you can do is take time to think about the words that cause you trouble. Here's a baker's dozen that may trip you up when you are busily touch-typing. • Cite (to summon, to quote, to refer to), Site (place, situation), Sight (view) • Council (administrative or advisory group), Counsel (to advise, advice) • Desert (waterless region, to abandon), Dessert (last course of a meal) • Dew (moisture), Do (perform), Due (owed) • Gait (manner of walking, Gate (door) • Grate (iron frame), Great (large, magnificent) • Haul (pull, carry, transport), Hall (passageway, large room) • Here (in this place), Hear (to perceive sound, to sit in judgment) • Idol (image, object of adoration), Idle (not busy), Idyl (poem) • Leak (hole, to drain out of), Leek (vegetable) • Made (created), Maid (domestic servant, unmarried woman) • Meat (animal flesh food), Meet (a gathering, to encounter, to convene) • Morning (before noon), Mourning (grieving, to grieve) |
