Writing Wrongs: The 3 Most Common Homonym Mixups (and How to Avoid Them)

Today I am adding a new type of fragment to the Smithereens melee: Writing Wrongs, a feature that will appear here from time to time offering tips and tricks to improve your writing, both technically and content-wise. A tip of the hat to Jonathan over at the CopyWrite blog, whose recent post "Grammar Wars" got me thinking on this topic and inspired this segment.

On the menu today? The top 3 homonym-related ailments that I see affecting (not effecting) perfectly good prose on a regular basis, and my prescribed remedies. If your writing suffers from these particular afflictions from time to time, hopefully the tips below will help you nuke the habits. And if you're immune, I'm sure you can think of someone who isn't, so why not send them by?

1- They're up to their knees in mud over there. 

A lot of people seem to mix up these three pesky homonyms and I've come to the conclusion that it (usually) has little to do with one's intelligence, or lack thereof. This just seems to be one nagging set of sound-alikes that almost everyone muddles from time to time.

For those who are naturally good spellers, these can be common typo-fodder when your brain fires the wrong way mid-sentece. For those who struggle with spelling to begin with, well, even using spell-check won't save you on this one. As a result, it persists: I've caught this particular doozy everywhere from published novels to massive public billboards. Can the epidemic be stopped?

The Solution:

Well, for starters, if you find this troublesome trio so difficult to wrangle, why not whittle it down by a third right off the bat? After all, "They're" isn't really a word, anyway; it's a contraction of the words "They" and "Are." So if it's really throwing you off, here's an idea: Don't use it. Ever. 

Would anyone fault you for eliminating that contraction from your vocabulary entirely? I, for one, wouldn't would not.

Ok, so are you still there? Good, then listen here: If it's the opposite of "here" you mean to write, it had better have a "h-e-r-e" within. There, now that wasn't so hard was it?

And of course, then there was one: Their - which is neither here nor they're. Got it?

2 - Your dog can't speak, so it's impossible to know exactly what's on its mind.

There are only two words to muck up here, but that doesn't stop people from doing so on a pretty regular basis. In my experience, it is almost always the latter form that isn't used when it should be. In other words, the poor dog is often found trying to wag it's tail, but its not as common for people to forget that apostrophe (unless it's a text message or a Twitter Tweet.)

The Solution:

The advice I gave above will do the trick here, too: just remember that contractions are optional (unless of course, you're trying to conserve characters.) If you get yourself into the habit of spelling out "it is" insted of "it's", you'll have nothing to worry about anymore because, well, I think you're pretty smart and you'll just know that trying to make the dog wag it is tail doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

I had an English teacher early on who, when she taught us about contractions, warned us direly: "Never forget about the letters you're leaving out." I couldn't have said it better - if you're going to use contractions, make sure you're conscious of those so-called "invisible letters." If you can't see them in your head, don't use contractions. The Royal Society of Grammar Police extends its sincere gratitude.

3- "I want to get a tu-tu, too," the two-year-old cried.

Another fearsome threesome for you: to, too and two (Yes, I just threw in tu-tu for fun... anyone who mixes that one up as well needs grammatical help beyond the purview of this blog.) But really this is more of a duo - most people seem to have a handle on the complex mathematics of two = 2, but still garble the other two with wild abandon.

The Solution:

This one's a bit trickier because you can't blame the invisible letters this time. The most common error here, I think, is to forget the second 'o' when one means "as well" or "exceedingly." You rarey read of someone's trip too Florida (though I'm sure it happens from time too time), but rather of all the people who wanted to go there to.

In light of this, my suggestion for those who struggle with this one would be yet another vocabulary adjustment. Firstly, if you find it difficult to remember that "too" and not "to" means "as well", don't feel obligated to use "too" at all. After all, in addition to "too" and the aforementioned "as well", you can also use "also" or "likewise!"

And if you're having too much trouble remembering that second "o" when what you mean is "excessive" (like here), you could always just use "excessive" instead (I won't tell.)

Or if you're a visual learner, try this tact on for size: I'm pretty sure a kindergarten teacher once told us to envision the o's as little happy faces, and not to forget the second one in "too", because "he" wants to be included in the word, "too"! So, um, yeah, go with whatever floats your boat on this one.

The Tip of the Iceberg

There are many more homonyms that trip people up, I know. Off the top of my head I can readily think of "your" and "you're" and "who's" and "whose", but both of these (and many others) are simply contraction issues like "they're" and "their/there" and I don't want to sound like a broken record here, so I'll leave it at these three for today and dismiss class early so you can have a longer recess. You're welcome. 

(If you really want to delve in further, Ian has a great bulleted list of common homonym pairs and groups here for your reading pleasure.)

But before you go, if you have your own tips and tricks for dealing with these and other homonym group mishaps, let's hear them in the comments.

And by the way, one thing for which homonyms are excellent fodder is the creation of clever puns (which is why 7 days without puns is enough to make one weak.) So if you haven't done so already, make sure to enter my Twitter micro-writing contest "Can You Put the Wit in Twitter?" to have a shot at winning some pretty cool prizes, along with the misfortune honour of being named the Wittiest Twit on Twitter! Deadline is the 18th of June, but you can enter more than once, so you best get number one out of the way in case inspiration strikes a little harder later on. Go on, what are you waiting for?