By Les Linz

Like love and marriage, homonyms go together.

From the Greek, meaning “same name,” they never stand alone and are normally found in groups of two, though sometimes three or even more.

Homonyms add variety and spice to our lives and make things difficult on those trying to learn the English language, be they young or old.

So what’s a writer to do? Write what’s right.

Consider then these figures of speech that I have prepared in a hopefully whimsical way. Some of the examples are more complex than others. Enjoy.

You/ewe/yew/hew/hue — You have some lovely ewes playing midst the yews, and once you hew your yews down, the now dead shrubs will take on a different hue.

Cain and Abel (not to be confused with cane and able) — Cain killed his brother, Abel, but if Cain needed a cane to get around (because he wasn’t otherwise able), Abel would likely have been alive for many years to come, unless of course, he further aggravated his sibling by raising cane.

Mote/moat — Make sure to take the beam out of your own eye before removing the mote found in your brother’s. When you fail to do that, it’s because you have figuratively surrounded yourself with a moat of your own. Repent and the two of you will experience the joy that comes out of re-mote possibilities.

Cents/sense/scents — It doesn’t make a lot of sense to pay thousands of cents for scents that smell like little more than incense.

Lesson/lessen — COVID has caused teachers to lessen the amount of lessons the kids are learning.

Heard/Herd — We have all heard about the herd immunity we’re supposed to be achieving.

Weight/wait — I’ll have to wait a long time to get all of the weight off that I put on during the COVID quarantine.

Groan/grown — I groan about the degree to which I’ve grown, or put a little differently, a waist is a terrible thing to mind.

I/eye/aye aye — Fortunately, I see eye to eye with the aye aye crowd. Go military. Thank you for your service.

To/too/two — These days, you can go to the White House and see two people that simply spend too much.

Raise/rays/raze — The patriarch and demolition expert determined to raise all of his male offspring Ray, so when they got together for family business, he could say that the sons Rays meet and raze the roof in doing so.

Ail/ale — The symptom of being sick from having had too much of the other.

Allowed/aloud — No one should be allowed to read aloud in the library (unless done for a special program)

Bawled/bald — I bawled when I looked in the mirror on my 40th birthday to find that I had become bald.

Beers/biers — Too many beers at the tavern may result in too many new biers at the cemetery.

Dear/deer — Bambi was a dear deer, endearing to all except those that would shoot at him or his family.

Descent/decent — It is decent of the pilot to make his descent gradual rather than abrupt.

Fair/fare — Good rate for a taxi.

Fined/find — He was fined by the government for the find he claimed was his own.

Forth/fourth — The troops led us forth out of bondage on the Fourth of July.

Hear/here — The committee wants to hear from all those that are here.

Lo/low — Lo and behold how low the limbo participants go.

Colonel/kernel — The colonel had a kernel stuck between his teeth.

Horde/hoard — The economy being what it is, there is a horde of people hoarding funds.

Eight/ate — There were eight human Ark passengers that ate their meals.

Bows/boughs — Earth worshipers are known to bow before the boughs.

Cell/sell — A cell group is one that sells you on the value of study and fellowship.

Healing/heeling — Naaman received his healing when submitting to an act of heeling.

Him/hymn — I asked him what his favorite hymn was. Turns out it was “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

Our/hour — Our time has come when we reach the final hour.

Idle/idol — In America, some have made being idle an idol unto itself.

Knew/new — He will say “Depart from me you workers of iniquity for I never knew you” to those that merely claimed a new life.

See/sea — I went to see the Sea of Galilee when visiting Israel.

Bear/bare — I have never seen a bear with a bare behind.

Beech/beach — Seldom (if at all) will you ever find a beech at the beach.

Beat/beet — Officer Romikoskov walked a beat when he wasn’t eating beet soup.

Bell/belle — I rang the bell and the southern belle came to the door.

Berth/birth — The birth canal is the berth of the preborn.

Blew/blue — He blew so hard he turned blue.

Boy/buoy — The boy, bobbing happily in the water, was mistaken for a buoy and sadly treated accordingly.

Brake/break — If you don’t brake in time, you’ll break the window.

Coarse/course — When consuming the main course, I determined it to be more like the mane coarse.

Feat/feet — It is quite a feat to stand on your feet on concrete all day.

Knight/night — The knight only went out at night because he didn’t want to be seen by those that remembered his scene.

Mail/male — They call him the male man, which of course he is by nature. In days of old, they called him mailman because he regularly performed his tasks adorned in (and with) chain mail.

Witch/which — A question commonly asked at Halloween when the kids come to the door: Which witch is which?

Flew/flue/flu — A flock of birds, likely under the influence of the flu, flew into my flue.

Sale/sail — They have a boatload of sailboats for sale.

Moan/mown — The cow let out a contented moan as it laid down upon the fresh-mown grass.

Write/wright/right — As the old television commercial that depicted a computer-assisted dictation program used to say, “Write Mr. Wright, right now.”

How about just one more?

Add homonym/ad hominem — Hopefully, today’s column has inspired you to add homonym to your speech while not assailing the article in an ad hominem attack.

Les Linz of Seymour writes the “Humor: More or Les” column. For information about Linz, visit his amazon.com author page. Send comments to [email protected].