English errors and misusage of words resulting in malapropisms and word blunders that cause misunderstanding

File Group H:
Where Do These Homonyms and Homophones Come From?

Many languages are blessed or burdened, depending on one’s point of view, with homophones and homographs.
The world’s champion for numbers of homophones is probably Chinese, partially as a result of its subtle voice inflections and almost imperceptible nuances.
The English language has more than many other languages and for several reasons:
First, English has borrowed liberally from other languages; for example, air, err, and heir stem from a combination of Middle English, Old French, and Latin.
Second, the inclination of the English and Americans for shortening words creates numerous homophones; such as, plane (from aeroplane or airplane) which is homophonous with plain, or ads (from advertisements) which is homophonous with adds and adze.
Third, some homophones are created by converting proper names to specific things, like (James) Joule, which is homophonous with jewel.
Fourth, sound changes occur through a process known as assimilation; such as, the d in chased evolving toward the t in chaste.
Homophones continue to bite at our prose like chiggers at our ankles.
Imagine a girl holding a fruit in one hand and two shoes in the other. She must be able to distinguish pair, pear, and pare. The following rhyme illustrates the solution to her problem:
One pear to pare and then to eat;

The other pair to put on her feet.

When the English tongue we speak,

Why is break not rhymed with freak?

Will you tell me why it’s true

That we say sew but likewise few?

And the maker of a verse

Can not rhyme his horse with worse?

Beard sounds not the same as heard,

And cord is different from word.

Cow is cow, and low is low.

Shoe is never rhymed with foe.

Think of rose and close and lose,

And think of goose and yet of choose.

Think of comb and tomb and bomb,

Doll and roll and home and some,

And since pay is rhymed with say,

Why not paid with said, I pray?

We have blood and food and good.

Cough is not pronounced like could.

Wherefore done but gone and lone?

Is there any reason known?

I shall wonder ever after

Why slaughter doesn’t rhyme with laughter

Thus, in short, it seems to me

Sounds and letters disagree.

—Anonymous

—Harry Emerson Fosdick