Almost immediately after I wrote my post on heteronyms – words spelled identically but with different meanings and pronunciations – I got an email from a reader suggesting I write a follow up on homophones. She pointed out homophones are much more difficult for non-native English speakers. My reader’s logic made sense. Because heteronyms are…
Tag Archives | ESL
Looks Can Be Deceiving: 10 Sentences with Heteronyms
The local dump was so overflowing that it had to refuse refuse. If you’re like most people, that sentence looks wrong. After all, it has the same word repeated twice in a row. Most of us assume it can’t be proper grammar. While it’s true that repeated words usually are bad grammar, in this case…