What's the Word?

What's the Word? 

You ever write a word and you're not sure witch or which spelling is correct? I mean, really, there or they're pronunced the same, but there or their spelled differently. 

Well, there's a word for those words. Actually, there's more than one word, of course!

According to Merriam-Webster: Homophones are words that sound the same but are different in meaning or spelling. Homographs are spelled the same, but differ in meaning or pronunciation. Homonyms can be either or even both. To help remember, think of the etymology: homophones have the same sound (the Greek phonos), homographs have the same spelling (Greek graphein), and homonym comes from the Greek word meaning "name" (onyma).

accept/except: Accept: to take or receive. Except: used as a preposition or conjunction to mean but or exclude.

affect/effect: Affect is a verb (in most cases) and indicates influence. Effect is a noun (in most cases) and is the result of an action or change.

compliment/complement: Compliment: to say something nice about someone or something. Complement means something that enhances or completes.

then/than: the order of how things happened. Than is a subordinating conjunction you can use to make comparisons.

Their', 'they're' and 'there'  'Their' means it belongs to them, eg "I ate their sweets." 'They're' is short for 'they are' eg "They are going to be cross." 'There' refers to a place, eg "I'm going to hide over there."

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These are just a few examples...

As you can see, your confusion is not an illusion! 

So, when in doubt, use your Google machine! 

What's the word: Homonyms

#whatstheword by Marjorie Farrington March 31, 2021