The largest homophone set

kw: words, wordplay, homophones

Air, are (a land measure), ere, e'er, err, Eyre, and heir are seven words that are pronounced the same in most regional dialects of English. I collect groups of homophones (also frequently called homonyms), and of the roughly 800 sets I have gathered, this is the largest. Nearly all the sets have two members, and only a handful have four or more. Of these seven, the two spellings that most clearly express the pronunciation for most people are air, rhyming with hair, and heir, in which the h is silent.

These words are not equally familiar, so let's define each:

• air is the stuff we breathe. The word can also refer to a popular tune, though this usage is falling out of use: "She sat at the piano and played a simple air."
  
• are as a measure of land is to be distinguished from the verb of the same spelling, but pronounced to sound just like the letter r. An are is 100 square meters, and the more familiar measure hectare is 100 ares, roughly equal to 2.5 acres.
  
• ere is a poetic preposition meaning "before". It is found at the center of the palindrome that expresses a possible thought by Napoleon in exile: "Able was I ere I saw Elba."
  
• e'er Is another poetic expression, a contraction for ever. You'll find it in some older songs, and in many hymns, which frequently rhyme fore'er with there or where.
  
• err is a verb meaning to make a mistake: "To err is human; to forgive, divine."
  
• Eyre is the surname of the heroine of the novel Jane Eyre. The name is sometimes pronounced with a more distinct y sound, but this is rather rare, and tends to make it a two-syllable word.
  
• heir is someone who will inherit. While most people assume an heir is a person's child, your actual heir is whomever you designate in your will. You do have a will, don't you? Without one, upon your untimely death, the government of the state or nation in which you live will decide who your heirs are.

Most European languages are like English in being rather poor in homophones. By contrast, Chinese has so many that, if the language were written with an alphabet rather than ideographic characters, it would be almost impossible to decipher. Even Japanese, which started out as a wholly unique language, has adopted so many Chinese pronunciations of common words that some homophone groups in Japanese have thirty or more members. Of course, this means that these Asian languages are much richer in possibilities for punning!

Spell Checkers Can't

kw: homophones, homonyms, grammar, solecisms

I have for years collected instances in print, for which it is likely the author and editor both relied on spelling checkers but went no farther to establish a correct text. My favorite, seen at least every year or two in the daily paper, is often seen in a headline:

"New Store Draws a Hoard of Shoppers"

To which an evil voice in my head asks, "Oh, where were they cached? I hope they had enough cash!"

(Did I need to tell you the mot apropos is horde? Yes? Then please keep reading!)

Recent examples that set me off today:

• In a marvelous book on anthropology that I'll soon review, one caption states, "Almost all living apes are restricted to living in tropical rainforest environments — accept the chimpanzee..." "Accept" is a verb meaning to tolerate or to admit into a group (among a dozen similar meanings), while "except," the word meant here, is a conjugation that means just the opposite: to exclude. The sentence as written loses its meaning entirely!
• The recent issue of Scientific American, reporting the death of polymath Philip Morrison, stated that he was "a font of new ideas." No, not really. A font is a typeface, such as Roman or Arial. Dr. Morrison was genuinely a fount (think Fountain) of new ideas, and I am sad to see he is gone.
• The newest Harry Potter book has a couple: "...the site of Mr. Fudge..." Really, now, it was the sight of Fudge that so discomfitted the P.M. And elsewhere "fug" is used rather than "fog," of a deposit on a cold windowpane. The former, incorrect word, refers to a gloomy, even perhaps a foggy, mood, but never to what you get by breathing against a cool window.

Now, we really have two kinds of errors here. "Accept" vs "except" are near-homophones. They sound much alike, though not exactly so. "Horde/hoard" and "cache/cash" are more exact homophones, as are "site/sight". (Many of us were taught that they are homonyms, but that word, meaning "same name," can mean either similar spelling or similar sound; homophone is more exact in this case) However, "font/fount" and "fug/fog" are more nearly look-alikes that sound roughly similar. I suppose they are more nearly what is meant by "homonyms."

I keep waiting for someone to put the smarts in a grammar checker (maybe the one in Microsoft Word?), so it can ask you whether the word you're using is really what you want, and offer a sound-alike that might carry the meaning you want. Meantime, there is still no substitute for a properly educated editor.