A monarch reigns over their country. A budgeter reins in their spending. A gloomy cloud rains down on a city. These verbs sound the same, but they each look and mean something different.
This past week while editing I spotted this classic typo-not-typo known as a homophone. Homophones are words that sound the same (homo = same; phonos = sound) but have different meanings or spellings.
Common instances of homophones are:
- their/they’re/there
- to/too/two
- your/you’re
It’s easy to type the wrong one by mistake, but usually a pretty simple fix when proofreading a piece of writing with fresh eyes. Then there are some homophones that are a bit trickier, such as:
- affect/effect
- capital/capitol
- complement/compliment
- rain/reign/rein
These homophones appear less frequently. You may have to pause and think a bit longer about the part of speech and how the word is being used. My role as an editor is full of pauses for things like homophones. Is that word spelled right? Is it used correctly? Let me check. Is that date right? Is it formatted correctly? Let me check. It takes some time, but the end result is a piece that both sounds and looks how the writer intended. And that sounds good to me!
Want to learn more about homophones? Check out Scholastic’s list of Top 20 Commonly Confused Homophones (on scholastic.com).
Do homophones pop up in your writing? Proofreading is often that last stop to read for proper use of homophones and similar issues. Learn more about proofreading on my Services page.
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