Luz’s manner of speaking made it clear that she had no idea what she might say next. It wasn’t that she made things up, strictly speaking–only that facts were merely a point of departure for her.
~
Based on multiple conversations with a variety of people, I have come to the conclusion that some of them didn’t pay as much attention in English class (is it called Language now?) as I did. Yes, I was a goody two-shoes, and that may be the reason I embrace spelling and grammar rules so tightly. I alluded to this in a post from May of last year, if you recall. My brother will be rolling his eyes and composing a comment as he read this, but I must continue. What follows today is a little mini-tutorial in terms that describe word and phrase usage. You know, similes and metaphors and homographs and heteronyms. Those kinds of words.
Sadly, they are often butchered, or at least improperly labeled. Sadder still, I am one of those who gets them confused occasionally. I need a refresher, and now’s the time. It will be loads of fun. Well, for me. And if you read the rest of this post, you can see how much of a nerd I am.
Speaking of Homographs and Their Cousins
It embarrasses me to say that I had never heard of a homograph or a heteronym before I started researching these types of terms. While I am not at all sure you’ll ever need to distinguish between them, some of you were enamored of geometry (yew) in high school and you may never use that, either. So I respectfully ask for tolerance while I fall down this rabbit hole.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t force it to eat lead. You can check its lead as it starts to canter, though. You can teach it to bow in front of the judges, but you can’t teach it to shoot an arrow with a bow. Though you might add a bow to its mane. Lead and bow are homographs and in this case, also heteronyms.
And then onto a hot button for me: homophones. If you’re still reading this post, your coffee may be getting cold. This exercise affects some people not at all; the effect on others is nauseating.
As confusing as it already seems, here’s a summary that you can deduce from Language Tool or English EFL or a dozen other sites. I guarantee that it will muddle the definition further: Homographs are words that are spelled the same but have different meanings or pronunciations (bow, referring to either of the nouns and the verb). Homonyms are both a homophone and a homograph, or either one or the other. 😫
And Then There are the Comparisons
Similes and metaphors are the easy bits. Similes contain ‘like’ or ‘as’ and metaphors do not. It’s little more than a nuance. Or perhaps a simile is padding if you’re attempting to reach a certain word count. Consider the minimal difference in “he’s as slow as molasses” to “he’s a sloth.” Throwing shade either way, but not as disparaging as my favorite idiom, “he’s lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut.” Back on topic.
Dolly Parton tells us that Love is Like a Butterfly, and she could be right. Heaven knows her track record is stellar. Still, the lyrics contain more similes than Carter’s has little liver pills. Perhaps all songs do, and I just hadn’t noticed before. But I will now.
You?
Types of Phrases and Meanings (from English-efl.com)
- Heteronym – same spelling, different pronunciation & meaning – bow (and arrow) and bow (when greeting a dignitary)
- Homographs match the spelling and may have the same pronunciation – lead (at the head of the line) & lead (metal)
- Homonym (same name and maybe same pronunciation) – saw (noun) and saw (verb)
- Homophones sound the same, but have different meanings – you’re and your or affect (verb) and effect (noun)
Polonius: What do you read here, my lord
Hamlet: Words, Words, Words
Yes, as predicted, that piece made my head hurt. It did take me back to the fact that the difference in an orange is a telephone pole and if you are driving down the stream in a wire canoe with a blow out on the left front tire, how many pancakes would it take to cover up the dog house? 24 because pancakes are not square and donuts don’t have bones.
🤣