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The wrong homonym
02-05-2013, 04:49 AM
(Or, more accurately, the wrong homophone.)
I considered posting this in the "Advice, tools, and other goodies for writers" thread, but it's only one example of using the wrong word that sounds like the right word... and folks might know of more.
Spotted on the Daz3D forums:
Intended: "armour plates."
Used: "armour plaits."
(Talk about a hairy situation!)
Has anyone else seen more of these lately?
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Rob Kelk
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I mentioned this in another, similar thread several years back, but the one that I think drives me craziest, and I see it all the time, is "discrete" when what the writer, by context, means is "discreet." To quote Harlan Ellison, "'Aaaarrrgh,' I aaaarrrghed." (Confession: I may not have spelled "Aaaarrrgh" quite the way Ellison did; I don't have the source for reference.)
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I have noticed several instances lately of "fete" used where it should be "feat," which I don't think is actually a homophone, just something that looks like it should be if not for the way English conks other languanges and drags them into dark alleys to forcibly plunder their verbiage.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
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"Fête" (with or without the circumflex) is definitely not a homophone for "feat," but I can see how someone might get the words confused. I did recently see someone use "feets" for "feats."
"Reign" vs. "rein." Usually seen mangling the expressions "to rein in" or "to give free rein." These are horseback riding terms; they refer to whether or not a rider (or driver) gives the animal(s) its (their) head or controls its (their) speed. To remember the correct usage of "reign," keep in mind that it's the last syllable of "sovereign." Oddly I don't usually see "rain" getting confused with the other two.
There's also "weather" vs. "whether." Let us not forget words commonly confused like "it's" vs. "its," "two" vs. "to" vs. "too," and "they're" vs. "there" vs. "their."
From a Pagan blog, we get: "altar" vs. "alter," "pour" vs. "pore" (I've seen this one in fanfics), "censer" (as in "incense burner") vs. "censor" (what the Federal government isn't supposed to do), and "immanent" vs. "imminent."
Hmm, there are a lot of not quite homophones, but still similar words that get confused frequently like "tenant" vs. "tenet," "prescribe" vs. "proscribe," and "imply" vs. "infer." Maybe we need a separate thread for those.
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If you "assure" someone, you put them at ease.
If you "ensure" something, you seek to improve the possibility of making something happen.
If you "insure" something, you are paying money to protect something or someone against unforeseen accidents.
NOT the same word and NOT interechangeable.
(And of course, if you're talking about "Ensure," then you're drinking a nasty protien shake or eating fortified pudding, possibly at the hospital.)
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If you "accept" something, you're including or approving it.
If you "except" something, you're excluding it.
Amusingly, "flammable" and "inflammable" are actually synonyms.
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I have a huge file of misused words like these, an early version of which I posted on TVT and which remains there. You can find the latest version sitting next to my fanfic writer's guide http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/guide/f ... -words.txt]here.
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"draw" for "drawer" irritates me.
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"Cannon", a large calibre weapon, vs. "Canon", the established body of lore. Anyone who confuses the former for the latter, I wish to use the former on their latter.
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Not a homonym per se, but "cavalry" and "Calvary" are one that I see quite a bit. Along with "rogue" and "rouge."
Ebony the Black Dragon
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To "diffuse" is to slowly spread across a large volume.
To "defuse" is to prevent the extremely rapid dispersion across a large volume. 
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border - an edge or boundary
boarder - someone who has invaded your boat or who is renting a room
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
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One of my all-time favorites, from Ozzallos' Heir to the Empire: "HOLD, FOWL SORCEROUS!" What he actually meant was "HOLD, FOUL SORCERESS!" but what he ended up writing was functionally equivalent to "Stop, magic chicken!"
-- Bob
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He's a chicken, I tell you! A giant chicken!
(pecks at the Eye of Agamotto) Bukawk?
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
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horde / hoard -- I once read a book in which this was used deliberately: even though the play on words doesn't work other than in English, the claim in this story was that the "Golden Horde" was actually supposed to be the "Golden Hoard" -- not a specific group of the Mongols, but a vast treasure they'd hidden. Total non-historical B.S., but the book did have some fun moments. Particularly the part where a cop, confronting what he believed to be a vampire, improvised a cross, shouted, "Begone, you fiend of Satan!" and then spent some time reminding himself that he was a sincere atheist.
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Things I've seen way too often lately:
"Ordnance" switched with "ordinance."
Authors using "per say," when they obviously meant per se. (three different fics by three different authors in just the past month! What is this, an epidemic?)
I see others have already mentioned "hoard/horde" and "fete/feet/feat."
"Site/Sight"
Some of the patterns I've seen lead me to wonder if some of the more regular offenders are using voice-to-text software, combined with a lack of proofreading.
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Or hearing intelligent people-slash-talking heads using the words on TV but not knowing what the actual spelling is.
A bumper crop of "egg-corns," perhaps?
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''
-- James Nicoll
One I saw in a Buffy/Fullmetal Alchemist crossover:
Armstrong does his shirtbusting thing. Buffy accuses him of being an "expositionist".
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That could easily have been intentional, it's a staple trait of writing her to contort old words into new and interesting grammatical obscenities.
a How-is-that-even-close - three times yesterday, I saw "exhume" where "exude" was meant. Seriously, eyes exhuming determination? Is this some new power held by the Sharingan, to unearth the dead?
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
Trust me, it wasn't. The characters were responding as if she had made the sort of mildly scanadalous allegation that "exhibitionist" would have been, and similar errors popped up - in third person point of view narration, if I recall correctly - with fair frequency.
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I forgot another one: "Populous" when the author rather obviously intended "populace."
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robkelk Wrote:Intended: "armour plates."
Used: "armour plaits."
(Talk about a hairy situation!) Hmm... if it were "amour plaits," one could chalk it up to a particularly weird hair fetish....
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One not-quite-homonym, but similar, that I've sneered about mentally for decades, now: in one of the early Dragonlance books, there's a scene of the heroes trying to go into a local government building where they're not entirely welcome, and the guards thrust "hauberks" forward to bar their way. It's not said whether they were wearing the hauberks or not. I larfs, I does.
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DHBirr Wrote:One not-quite-homonym, but similar, that I've sneered about mentally for decades, now: in one of the early Dragonlance books, there's a scene of the heroes trying to go into a local government building where they're not entirely welcome, and the guards thrust "hauberks" forward to bar their way. It's not said whether they were wearing the hauberks or not. I larfs, I does. Okay, now I'm trying to figure what weapon that armor was supposed to be. The closest thing I can think of is an arquebus (especially considering some of the alternate spellings in the Wiki article), but that's not something I'd expect to find in Dragonlance.
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halberd? maybe?
-Terry
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