Writing is hard. Some aspects of it are hard, some are
harder. Homophones don’t help anything.
I came across this article a while ago. It stresses that you
can spell everything correctly and still be wrong. For example, being throne
for a loop isn’t quite right. The examples here are excellent, but I want to take
it a step further.
There seem to be some words that befuddle even editors of
Big Five publications. I’ve read about characters pouring over papers more than
once. (It would be better if they pored over them! That way the papers stay
dry.)
These are two completely different things: bare arms and
bear arms. One belongs either in a clothing description or a sex scene. The
other belongs in a scene with weapons. The arms are spelled the same, but
aren’t the same thing. The bear/bare needs to be right so we know which arms
we’re talking about.
These two are a bit tricky: accessary and accessory. The
first is a person who helps commit a crime. The second is something that helps
complete an outfit. For even more confusion, that first one is used in Britain, but in the US, they are exactly the same word, both accessory.
Another pair is capitol and capital. In a capitol building,
people pass legislation. It can be spelled with a capital letter. Inside the
Capitol building in D.C. (that’s the one you capitalize) is where laws are
created. In state capitol buildings, laws regarding capital punishment are
decided. Even worse, Springfield is the capital of Illinois, which allows it to
have a capitol building, which was built after raising the capital to do so.
The O type capitol is only for buildings, if that helps.
One last confusing pair: principle and principal. The
principal of the school is the one who enforces the principles of discipline. I
keep this one straight by envisioning a friendly principal, one who is a pal.
If you love this subject, here’s just the link for you: http://www.singularis.ltd.uk/bifroest/misc/homophones-list.html
photos from morguefile
by LiaLeslie, lisasoloninko, nightfall
