Sound-Alikes That Drive Us Crazy

Picture the scene. I’m scrolling through my social media feed when I spot it. Someone has cheerily signed off their post with “Your Welcome!”

My left eye twitches and the evil copyeditor in me itches to comment with a correction (but I resist and get back to my work where I’m paid to be this pedantic).

Our dear old English language has an abundance of homophones – words that sound the same but have different definitions – and while I can’t say for sure when these phonetic twins might have tripped us up for the first time on our quilled-scratched parchment, our modern age of rapid-fire digital communication seems to be causing more confusion than ever about which ones should be used, and in what context.

It’s not entirely our fault. English has borrowed gleefully from other languages over the centuries, collecting words like a magpie collects shiny objects, with each new acquisition bringing its own spelling rules, pronunciation quirks, and exceptions to those rules.

Spell-check is great for picking up words spelled incorrectly but it will remain suspiciously quiet when they have been spelled correctly yet used in the wrong context.

So, if you’ve ever found yourself double/triple/quadruple-checking your usage of affect vs. effect, principal vs. principle, or any of the other commonly used homophones in business writing, here are some memory aids to help you remember which one to use.

 

Affect/Effect

• affect: begins with ‘a’ for action to influence or make a change
• effect: begins with ‘e’ for end, the result or consequence of something

Example: “The new policy will affect our workflow, but the effect won’t be noticeable.”

Principal/Principle

• principal: with an ‘a’ as in the mAin person or mAin sum of money
• principle: ending with ‘le’ as in rule, so think of rules or guidelines

Example: “Our principal investor believes in the principle of transparent communication.”

Stationery/Stationary

• stationery: with ‘er’ as in paper, which is used for writing
• stationary: with ‘ar’ as in park, which is about staying still

Examples:

“We have stationery like pens and paper in a cart that is stationary.”

(So, I guess that would be stationery in a stationary cart 😉and one could also have stationery in a stationery cart. Ok, that’s enough!)

Complement/Compliment

• complement: with ‘e’ as in complete, which is what happens when things complement each other; they seem complete
• compliment: with ‘i’ as in nice (a nice compliment)

Cite/Site/Sight

• cite: shares ‘cite’ with ‘recite’; both are about repeating or referring to information

Example: “You should also cite your sources.”

• site: shares ‘sit’ with ‘situation’; both are about location.

Example: “The building site.”

• sight contains ‘ight’ as in ‘light’; you need lights to see sights

Forward/Foreword

• forward: contains ‘ward’, which means direction, e.g. wayward, backward, toward
• foreword: is the introduction to your book, or the words before the main text of your book

Censor/Sensor/Censure

• censor: blocks content – think ‘c’ for cut
• sensor: detects – think ‘s’ for sense
• censure: condemns – contains ‘sure’, think harsh for sure

Discrete/Discreet

• discrete: means separate; the ‘t’ separates one ‘e’ from the other
• discreet: means cautious or private; the ‘ee’ together are keeping a secret

Respectfully/Respectively

• respectfully: contains ‘full’ – it’s about giving your full respect to someone
• respectively: think ‘consecutively,’ both are about things in sequence

Advice/Advise

• advice: a noun with ‘ice’ in it, so think about ice as something you can hold
• advise: advise is a verb that sounds like it has ‘eyes’ in it, so think about eyes actively seeing and helping

Examples:

“You need my advice, so I am advising you.”

Personal/Personnel

• personal: with one ‘n’ is about one individual
• personnel: with two ‘ns’ is about more than one person; multiple people or staff

Precedence/Precedents

• precedence: is about the order or priority of ranking; it ends in ‘ce’ for ‘comes earlier’
• precedents: is about examples or test cases; it ends in ‘ts’ for ‘times spent’ (on cases in the past).

Addendum/Addition

• addendum: has ‘end’ in it; you usually include an addendum to the end of your contract (it’s a separate piece of information, document, or modified terms and conditions)
• addition: has ‘add’ and ‘it,’ so think about adding information

Prevention Strategies

When I review manuscripts or academic papers, I can tell that mistakes like muddling up these homophones aren’t because of the writer’s lack of knowledge; they’re all highly skilled experts in their respective fields. It’s the complexities of the English language itself that can trip up the most accomplished of writers, and this is where a good copyeditor can help. We can provide an extra layer of quality control.

But if you can’t employ an editor, here’s a checklist of strategies you can use to self-edit and hopefully prevent any embarrassing mistakes before your work is published.

Before Writing:

• Create a personal list of your common homophone mix-ups.
• Develop a custom stylesheet that includes your homophones and any other frequently confused words.
• Set up autocorrect in your writing software to flag common homophone pairs.

During Writing:

• Read sentences aloud as you write (or turn on the Read Aloud option of your word processing software). Chances are your ear will catch what your eyes have missed.
• Don’t rely solely on AI correction software. It might not pick up correctly spelled words used in the wrong context.

After Writing/Final Review:

• Let your writing rest for at least 24 hours and re-read it with a fresh pair of eyes.
• Print the text. Errors often show up more clearly on paper than on screen.
• A favourite trick of mine is to read the text backwards, sentence by sentence. This breaks the flow and forces you to focus on individual words.
• Change the font – this can make errors more noticeable.

• Have a trusted friend or peer review your work.

Longer-term Strategy:

• Study the etymology of commonly confused words – understanding their origins will help cement their meanings.
• Subscribe to writing resources that regularly address these types of issues. “Write better nonfiction” on the “Writer’s Digest” website is an excellent resource.

 

Will you find any of these homophone memory aids useful?

If your usage of their, they’re and there is making you lose your hair, why not contact me for help? Let’s discuss your project and put a plan of action into place.