Know your English│Discussing homophones, homonyms and homographs Premium

A column on English phrases and grammar

“Look at the bride-to-be, see how beautiful she looks! I feel dumbstruck, because I simply cannot believe she is to marry such a cruel and undeserving person. She cannot even consider me, only because her parents do not approve of me. I know this is her engagement party, but do you think I should go up to her right now and confess my feelings for her?”

“No! This is her day and I think she looks very happy. The last thing she needs is for you to incite a row here.”

“‘Row’, you mean? Pronounced like the ‘row’ in ‘brown’?”

“I’m pretty sure ‘row’ is pronounced like the ‘row’ in ‘crow’. Is that wrong?”

“Oh, I see where you’re coming from! The issue is that the words ‘row’ and ‘row’ are two different words, with different pronunciations but the same spelling. Different words with the same spelling are called ‘homographs.’ Homographs don’t have to have different pronunciations, but in this case they do. The one that is pronounced like the ‘row’ in ‘crow’ refers to the action of using oars to push something forward over water — you row your boat gently down the stream. The word you were trying to use is pronounced like the ‘row’ in ‘brown’, and it refers to a noisy argument or a fight — you want to stop me from inciting a row.”

“I remember learning about these in school, but I thought these were called homonyms? As opposed to another type where the words have different spellings but the same pronunciation.”

“Ah, a common misconception. There certainly is another type where different words are pronounced the same way — these words are called ‘homophones.’ These, however, don’t actually have to be spelt differently. While ‘peak,’ ‘peek,’ and ‘pique’ are definitely homophones, so are ‘rose,’ the flower, and ‘rose,’ as in the past tense of rise. ‘Rows’ would also be considered a homophone in this set, but only the first two are considered homographs as well. A ‘homonym’ actually means any word which is either a homograph, homophone, or both! The Greek etymology can help us tell them apart: ‘homos’ means ‘same, similar’; the ‘nym’ comes from ‘onoma’ meaning ‘name’, the ‘graph’ from ‘grapho’ meaning ‘write’ and the ‘phone’ from ‘phones’ meaning ‘sound.’