Originally posted as the Dun Writin’—Now Whut? series on this blog, EDITING 101 is a weekly refresher series for some of you and brand new for others.

Courtesy of Adirondack Editing

Homonyms, Homographs, and Homophones

I had a lot of fun researching today’s post. (Yes, I’m an über-geek, but let’s just keep this to ourselves, shall we?) You may be wondering what these words are (and how in the world they pertain to writing), but you’ll be surprised once I define them. I’m sure you know exactly what they are; you just don’t know the official words for them. And we’re only interested in one when it comes to writing and editing.

Homonyms are words with the same spelling and the same pronunciation, but they have different meanings:

• bear (animal) and bear (tolerate)

• rose (flower) and rose (past tense of “rise”)

• spruce up a room and a spruce tree

See? You knew…