Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Tripping over words

Firstly, homophones are words that sound alike. We have discussed this before. These words are not strictly homophones, because they are not exactly alike. But could be mistaken for each other in certain situations.

Why are "inmate" and "intimate" so similar? I was reading an article and misread the word "intimates" as "inmates." It was referring to the people around you, with whom you have a close relationship. And it seemed appropriate, even though it was not talking about the friends around you with whom you share your prison. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe they are synonyms.

Invincible and invisible? If you were invisible, would you be invincible? Maybe I'm thinking about this because My son and I are reading The Hobbit.

Expiring and Aspiring? It's probably only me. I mean I tripped over the word "technological" last weekend, so in most circumstances people would not hear one of these words instead of the other, unless someone was nervous and speaking very fast and tripped over their tongue.

Cynicism and sinister!

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