What would the English language be without homonyms or heteronyms? A lot simpler, that’s for sure. English is a difficult language to master. I’ve been speaking it for 27 years now and I still don’t have it down perfectly. Fortunately there are many people who speak my language who insist on changing it, or at the very least, abusing it out of shape.

Let me demonstrate with an improper sentence of homonyms: words that have the same pronunciation but different meanings and spellings.

Eye road two the store awn my hoarse and bought sum food, witch aye eight later that knight.

It makes no sense unless read aloud, right? Commonly confused words such as two, too, and to or there, their, and they’re work fine if you don’t have to write them. But if you’re reading my blog then you probably already know that.

Now a sentence with heteronyms: words that are spelled the same but have different pronunciations and meanings.

I found a tear in my expensive new coat and I started to tear up.

So then is a mononym another name for a word that doesn’t fall into either of these categories? Think carefully before you classify a word as one.

Eye thought about making this blog entry replete with homonyms but, for won, it wood bee very difficult two reed, and to, it wood get awl over the internet and then remain their for everyone too sea, forever.

I wonder if homonyms would make good poetry, though…? I also wonder what the word is that has the most homonym variations, and how many variations there are? Three? Four? Five?!