The Headache with Heteronyms

[Duleigh]

Heteronyms - they ceased being a headache for English speaking people around the age of 10, but now that we're writing on a forum that has international readership heteronyms have returned to rear their ugly heads. My Korean friend Mr. Park was an English teacher and he understood heteronyms but tried to avoid them because they were such a nightmare for his Korean speaking students.

What is a Heternoym? Heteronyms are words that are spelled the same, but pronounced differently. Heteronyms often have multiple pronunciations and meanings. Some examples:
Record (REK-ord) like an LP album and record (ree-CORD) the process used to put the music on your record (REK-ord)
Wound (WOO-nd) a cut or gash on your arm which you wound (WOW-nd) up with gauze
Graduate (GRAD-joo-ate) what happens when you finish high school or college, then you become a graduate (GRAD-joo-et)
Minute (MIN-et) is sixty seconds but something really really small is minute (my-NOOT)

These can really trip up a person reading who speaks English as a second language. But also think of blind readers when their app, generally JAWS reads the heteronym and provides the pronunciation you didn't intend to use. Folks like me who edit with a read-back option notice this all the time, and it's annoying when your character as a wound (WOW-nd) that required 13 stitches. Sewer and deliberate also drive me crazy. Then I just discovered slough...

So I try to avoid them as much as possible just to make reading easier for my readers who aren't entertained by the quirk of heteronyms. Have you run into any that drive you crazy wondering if you got the spelling right?

 

[KeithD]

"reCREate" (exercise for pleasure) and "REcreate" (make again).

Every time Cat Stevens pronounces it as "reCREate" on "Morning Has Broken," I cringe.

 

[alohadave]

"reCREate" (exercise for pleasure) and "REcreate" (make again).

One thing that I do is use a dash to distinguish uses like this.

re-create instead recreate, so I don't have rely on context to get the meaning through (though I don't think I've ever used recreate in the leisure sense).

I know it's nonstandard, but I think it helps, at least in business communications where I mostly use it.

 

[KeithD]

One thing that I do is use a dash to distinguish uses like this.

re-create instead recreate, so I don't have rely on context to get the meaning through (though I don't think I've ever used recreate in the leisure sense).

I know it's nonstandard, but I think it helps, at least in business communications where I mostly use it.

If your work was run through a publishing house edit, the hyphen would be dropped. The hyphen is contrary to current U.S. style. If you do it here, it probably would survive.

 

[TheLobster]

I never really had problems with OP’s list in particular, to be honest. read/read and lead/lead was something that tripped me very early on but that’s thankfully years in the past now.

The one I had a lot of trouble with was “long-winded,” probably because “windbag” is so close semantically.

 

[THBGato]

Have you seen this blog? https://homophonesweakly.blogspot.com/

 

[alohadave]

If your work was run through a publishing house edit, the hyphen would be dropped.

As I said, business communications.

The hyphen is contrary to current U.S. style. If you do it here, it probably would survive.

Based on all manner of things that get posted here, I'm not at all worried. Though I doubt I'd use it in prose.

 

[Agent0069]

“Ah, so this is how it’s called, and this is why they sometimes pronounce it differently!”

To my non-native ear, everything that is not a “minüte”, “minuté”, or even “minuте” is already good enough. Glad that I learned something new today.

 

[mildlyaroused]

As a native English speaker who's written and read millions of words, my brain still buffers when I come across an ambiguous heteronym. Though I tend to just read on, and my brain goes back to fill in the word once the rest of the sentence has provided enough context. I had a friend (whose second language was English) who once told me they simply couldn't do that, because they'd learned to be judicious and accurate in their reading of English.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I'd have thought reading software would have learned by now when such a word is a verb (emphasis usually on final syllable, recORD, graduATE) vs a noun.

The ones that annoy me are the ones derived from French but pronounced differently in America vs the UK - buhl-LAY, buhf-AY, fillAY etc. - instead of the emphasis on the first syllable.

 

[Duleigh]

I'd have thought reading software would have learned by now when such a word is a verb (emphasis usually on final syllable, recORD, graduATE) vs a noun.

The ones that annoy me are the ones derived from French but pronounced differently in America vs the UK - buhl-LAY, buhf-AY, fillAY etc. - instead of the emphasis on the first syllable.

I don't know about JAWS, I'll have to ask a blind reader if JAWS can deal with it, but Microsoft Read Aloud misses them every time in both Word and Edge

 

[Emilymcplugger]

Heteronyms - they ceased being a headache for English speaking people around the age of 10, but now that we're writing on a forum that has international readership heteronyms have returned to rear their ugly heads. My Korean friend Mr. Park was an English teacher and he understood heteronyms but tried to avoid them because they were such a nightmare for his Korean speaking students.

What is a Heternoym? Heteronyms are words that are spelled the same, but pronounced differently. Heteronyms often have multiple pronunciations and meanings. Some examples:
Record (REK-ord) like an LP album and record (ree-CORD) the process used to put the music on your record (REK-ord)
Wound (WOO-nd) a cut or gash on your arm which you wound (WOW-nd) up with gauze
Graduate (GRAD-joo-ate) what happens when you finish high school or college, then you become a graduate (GRAD-joo-et)
Minute (MIN-et) is sixty seconds but something really really small is minute (my-NOOT)

These can really trip up a person reading who speaks English as a second language. But also think of blind readers when their app, generally JAWS reads the heteronym and provides the pronunciation you didn't intend to use. Folks like me who edit with a read-back option notice this all the time, and it's annoying when your character as a wound (WOW-nd) that required 13 stitches. Sewer and deliberate also drive me crazy. Then I just discovered slough...

So I try to avoid them as much as possible just to make reading easier for my readers who aren't entertained by the quirk of heteronyms. Have you run into any that drive you crazy wondering if you got the spelling right?

Worst one for me.

The blustery wind really winds me up.

AAAAAGGH!!!

 

[Duleigh]

“Ah, so this is how it’s called, and this is why they sometimes pronounce it differently!”

To my non-native ear, everything that is not a “minüte”, “minuté”, or even “minuте” is already good enough. Glad that I learned something new today.

Text written by a native English speaker doesn't use accent marks to distinguish the different pronunciations, which is a shame. We teach our kids to look at the context for the proper pronunciation, which is difficult for the new to the language. I try to avoid heteronyms for this purpose. Accent marks would be helpful, but when an English speaker looks at languages like French or Vietnamese whose printed language is peppered with cryptic little marks and we tend to ignore them and try to apply our own rules of pronunciation (which generally fail.)

 

[alohadave]

pronounced differently in America vs the UK - buhl-LAY

What word is that?

 

[Duleigh]

What word is that?

That's a really good question, maybe that's what you shout when the matador makes a great pass at a British bullfight.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

What word is that?

Ballet. 'BallAY' in British English, 'b'LAY' in common US speech.

 

[Duleigh]

Ballet. 'BallAY' in British English, 'b'LAY' in common US speech.

no, in common US speech it's bail-AY

 

[KeithD]

I'd have thought reading software would have learned by now when such a word is a verb (emphasis usually on final syllable, recORD, graduATE) vs a noun.

"reCREate" and "REcreate" are both verbs.

 

[Bramblethorn]

 

[alohadave]

View attachment 2356182

Nice. Reminds me of Ghoti, pronounced: fish

 

[TheLobster]

no, in common US speech it's bail-AY

Must be regional then. In the areas of the US I used to hang out (west, on either side of the Rockies) it was always buh-lay, with the first vowel greatly reduced.

 

[Duleigh]

Must be regional then. In the areas of the US I used to hang out (west, on either side of the Rockies) it was always buh-lay, with the first vowel greatly reduced.

That's the only area of the US that I DIDN'T hang out and I've even spent time on the territory of Guam, I'm going to have to make my Wittier born wife tell me how it's pronounced.

 

[Rob_Royale]

The read aloud function on my MSWord, will often mix up the pronunciation of pussy. Instead of "pussy" like pussy cat, I get "pussy" like - full of puss. Ugh. It really kills the enjoyment of a fun sex scene when I'm proofreading.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

no, in common US speech it's bail-AY

Never heard that one. Despite a kid watching way too many videos with precocious American teenagers, not to mention my own family. Always a short A, usually elided to virtually nothing.

"reCREate" and "REcreate" are both verbs.

I know the mantra that 'there ain't no noun what can't be verbed', but the latter is an abomination I can't imagine anyone uses, outside some bureaucratese somewhere. I'm visualising a prissy teacher shooing the kids out for recess, calling "Go, recreate!"

 

[alohadave]

I know the mantra that 'there ain't no noun what can't be verbed', but the latter is an abomination I can't imagine anyone uses, outside some bureaucratese somewhere. I'm visualising a prissy teacher shooing the kids out for recess, calling "Go, recreate!"

I only ever see it in these types of discussions. Never heard anyone use it in normal speech.