Friday has found us flying toward the weekend.

RETRACTION, CORRECTION, SORROWFULL EXPLANATION!!!!  Grandpa Jim, me, is apologizing profusely for errors in the blog post of this past Monday, July 23rd, entitled Bear, Bear, Bare And A Babe On The Way!!!

I got “homophones” and “homonyms” backwards, and I missed “heterographs.”

If you recall, the catalyst for the discussion was: “What do you call words that sound exactly the same, but have different meanings are a spelled the same or differently?”

The way it should have been presented is described below.

Words that sound the same are “homophones,” from “homo” meaning “same” and “phone” for “sound” — they are the same-sound words. In our examples, fair (country fair) and fair (reasonable) are homophones, as our pear (a fruit) and pair (a couple). But, fair and fair are spelled the same, and pear and pair are spelled differently. There are different terms for these two subsets of homophones.

Homophones that are spelled the same are called “homonyms,” from “homo” for same and “nyms” for “names,” because they have exactly the same names, the same spellings. Fair and fair are homonym homophones.

Homophones that are spelled differently are called “heterographs,” from “hetero” for different and “graphs” for “drawings,” because they are written or drawn or spelled (spelling is word drawings to represent sounds) differently. Pear and pair are heterograph homophones.

I must warn you. There are even more terms to describe words that have the same meaning but different spellings and/or different sounds. This is a linguistic quagmire. And, different sites on the Internet have different explanations of the terms – they are not consistent. Be wary. Double check and common sense the definitions you find.

What I have tried to do today is clarify the distinction between homonyms (words that sound the same, have different meanings and are spelled the same) and heterographs (words that sound the same, have different meanings and are spelled differently).

Whew! I hope I said that right.

Uncle Joe has some more to say. So, stay tuned for four more days. “I’m for four” – a telling phrase with a heterograph homophone that is fast approaching.

Take a deep breadth, relax and think Friday thoughts,

Grandpa Jim

PS: I promised someone I would mention missal (a prayer book) and missile (a guided missile) this week. Yes, they are heterographs, homophone heterographs — and that’s a mouthful to project.

PPS: I am correcting the July 23, 2012 blog post to be consistent with the above discussion, which I hope is correct. If you have a comment, please email me at gpajim@unclejoestories.com

PPS: I really did rely on my Latin to help sort out these language terms, which suggests that Latin may be one of the best adjunct languages to study for English speaking peoples. My reason is stated as follows: The leaving legions left a lasting language legacy. Literation aside (and I love alliteration), Latin is really not a dead language.