Lightning recap. Homophones are words that have a similar pronounciation but different spelling and different meanings. They continue to be the bane of literate society.
The following homophones brought some levity to my dismal week of copy chopping:
An email from a client, with a rhetorical comment on my editing – bristling with red tracking, remarked, “I hope I haven’t given you to many grey hairs?” Now I’d love to have replied: “Some, yes. But not as many as at the bottom of my garden. And if that’s too cryptic an answer, do a to-too tango with your question. Then look at my answer and imagine my grey lawn rabbits in a line, marching backwards in indignation. Yup, that’s what your homophonic hitch provoked… by analogy – a receding hare-line. And lots of mirth in the process.”
From a writers’ freelancer E-group came the following personal announcement, “Folks, I’m sorry I’ve been so scares lately, but…” Now I’d loved to have replied (but was tripped up by a hefty dollop of decorum inculcated by exemplary parents): “Absence is certainly not as scary as a homophonic clanger!”
Curiously, I fell victim to my own rant by opening the draft with “Lightening” instead of “Lightning”! A variation on Muphrey’s Law perhaps? Which homophones have assailed your eyes of late and what might you have loved to have replied?
