Wrong use of homophones

K Robert Donovan

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When drafting new material, I do my best to ignore my inner editor and press on with the creative flow of ideas. Later when I return to edit the material, I encounter the occasional misuse of a homophone.

For those of you who don't know the definition (myself included, I had to search for it) a homophone is defined as follows: a word that has the same sound as another word but is spelled differently and has a different meaning:
- red/read
- right/write/rite
- pray/prey

Most common homophone errors I encounter in my writing:
- their/there/they're
- to/too/two (I never have issue with "two" but it is part of the homophone)

One's I struggle the most with and still have issues using it correctly:
- past vs passed.

Head scratchers discovered in my draft:
" … tied it around his waste."
" … went to there home."
" … he drank a little whine."
"Thinking the damage had past..."
" … waive of dismissal."
" … she proved her metal."

The most baffling one I discovered in my current WIP:
"Know, I won't do that for you." (What??? How on earth did I actually write that?)

So, what are some examples you've discovered in your writing?
 

kranix1

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I'm super judgy of spelling errors and stuff, even in texts.

It absolutely kills me how often I write there instead of their or they're or vice versa. I've mixed up others but they're/there/their is the biggest culprit.
 

Snitchcat

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Can’t say I’ve done this. But it sounds super annoying at the time, but quite hilarious in
retrospect.
 
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The Second Moon

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Funny typos

Don't you hate it when you misspell a word or have a typo? I do, but I love it when it turns out to be something funny.

A recent example from mine: Mr. Thomas' fat glowed (Supposed to be: Mr. Thomas' face glowed). No idea how I missed that one :Shrug:

I actually discovered my character Dan's name is a anagram of DNA by typing too fast. Best of all, Dan works with DNA.

So, what are some of your funny typos or misspellings? Or am I just a bad speller? :tongue
 

kranix1

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Every now and then I misspell 'butcher' as 'bitcher' and it usually gets a laugh.
 

Bufty

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Uh oh...you used the wrong homophone with "more often then..." It should be 'than'. :)

And isn't Snitchcat's 'is retrospect' another. :flag: Or is it perhaps just a misunderstanding of the phrase? It surely can't be a mistype because the letters are too far apart on the keyboard. :Hug2:

Past and passed are what make me stop and scratch my head most of the time:cry:.
 
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Dan Rhys

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Before I got an automatic email signature, when I typed to sign my emails, once instead of 'Dan' (my name), I put 'Damn,' thanks to the 'm' and 'n' being right next to each other.

Even funnier, my wife texted me asking if I got the "thong" of a mutual friend of ours, a woman I did not find the least bit attractive. When I responded, "UGH, gross!" she died laughing because she meant to put 'thing' there instead.
 

Enlightened

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I recall typing moron instead of moon. I think I described the moon in a way that made the word moron stand out like a sore thumb.

I do this quite a bit actually (especially when in the zone while typing).
 

Maryn

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I would not like a count of the number of times I have typed pubic when I was going for public.

Maryn, glad her fat doesn't glow
 

Snitchcat

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Lol! 'Tis what happens when typing with cats in front of the screen and keyboard.

- - - Updated - - -

And too many thoughts clamouring for attention.
 

K Robert Donovan

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Past and passed are what make me stop and scratch my head most of the time:cry:.

I agree 100%. I still have issues with it. The others I know better and they just happen because of the speed of writing. I wrote one the other night stating we were having "stake fajitas" for dinner. Someone kindly pointed it out, I laughed, and updated the thread.
 

lonestarlibrarian

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I would not like a count of the number of times I have typed pubic when I was going for public.

I used to be a secretary for one of the Assistant City Managers in a city that now has about 900,000 people. They were interviewing candidates for one of the other ACM spots. The CM's secretary gave me her list of questions for the candidates, for me to proofread before she gave it to the interview committee.

That was her typo, too. :) She meant to type some question about their perspectives on being a "public servant", but she dropped the L.

She was never very fond of me... but I hope I got some good karma points pointing that out to her before she printed out a zillion copies for all the department heads/councilmembers/etc. :)
 

Ol' Fashioned Girl

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Not mine, but I believe pointing it out got me the best job I'd ever had. When I went to interview with the HR lady and the CFO, after the standard half-hour of chit chat, the CFO asked me if I had any questions. I responded 'no' and that I had done some research that had answered all my questions. "But... I'd like to point out something. On your website... whoever's in charge of Photoshopping the company name on the side of the building... misspelled it." It was truely a 'What!?!' moment for them... they immediately grabbed keyboards and started logging in; and, sure enough, there it was.

I had a really nice offer waiting for me in my email when I got home.
 

K Robert Donovan

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I work in logistics and handle sourcing and contract work for various components of transportation. One area that I work with is cross-docking which, if you don't know, serves the purpose of gathering freight from multiple locations and consolidating it into full truckloads for outbound shipments. I once IM'd a person about a certain cross-dock but accidentally typed cross-d!ck (i and o are right next to each other) The crew didn't let that one go for several months.
 

Brightdreamer

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Every now and then I misspell 'butcher' as 'bitcher' and it usually gets a laugh.

In old dead-tree fandom amateur press associations, typos like that led to running jokes; the "bitcher knife" was a common one. (Also, the origin of the term for fannish music, "filk," was originally a typo IIRC.) It was much harder to correct a mimeograph stencil, so they tended to stay in if they were missed in proofing.

I have seen published ebooks (and more than one published paper book) where a misused homophone was not caught, and it can subtly irk me... especially when it keeps getting used and I'm not entirely sure the author actually knew it was a mistake (One ebook kept using "yolk" instead of "yoke.") I suspect text-to-speech software can be a culprit, though this is the kind of thing that automated spellchecks often are terrible at catching, because they're both technically words and often the same type of word (nouns or verbs or whatnot), so to a machine it makes perfect sense to yolk the oxen to the wagon. Another reason why it's important to physically read a draft before submission, and not just rely on Word to red- or green-line it if it's wrong...
 

vickik

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When I was 8 or 9, an older cousin mocked me for mixing up 'form' and 'from' on a spelling test. To this day, swapping those is my most common typo. My inner-school-marm cannot correct my hurt-inner-child, apparently. The wise-ass cousin now has perfect spelling in several languages, but at least I'll always be younger than him. It's a small win, but I'll take it.
 

Jason

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I’ve actually typoed my own name quite often: Jasno instead of Jason :Shrug:
 

Paul Lamb

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Years ago I saw such an error in the New York Times, and I figured if they can do it, I shouldn't feel too bad when it happens to me. My most common slip-up of this type is to use the word "not" in place of "now." "We will not come" isn't quite the same thing as "We will now come." And while Word's grammar checker might catch it (I hate that thing), the spell checker won't.
 

talktidy

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Lol! 'Tis what happens when typing with cats in front of the screen and keyboard.

Oh, gawd, cats. My own monster has no consideration for my towering genius.

Whatever the merits of my writing, my use of correct spelling and punctuation(-ish) was something I took pride in, and then I recently reread something I had written a while ago. Holy cow!
 

Dan Rhys

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And isn't Snitchcat's 'is retrospect' another. :flag: Or is it perhaps just a misunderstanding of the phrase? It surely can't be a mistype because the letters are too far apart on the keyboard. :Hug2:

Past and passed are what make me stop and scratch my head most of the time:cry:.

Right, just a misunderstanding...not quite a homophone confusion.