Some Words (Homonyms) and Non-synonymous Antonyms

Ever thought about words that have more than one antonym, and that those antonyms are not synonyms to each other? As an example, during a car ride, one word that I am often cognizant about is "right". The best word to confirm a traffic turn is "correct", not "right", especially if turning left.

From Merriam-Webster:

antonym
a word with a meaning that is opposite to the meaning of another word

synonym
a word that has the same meaning as another word in the same language
a word, name, or phrase that very strongly suggests a particular idea, quality, etc.

In the following 18 common words with antonym pairs, for two cases, I list "ordinary/normal" for antonyms, as those antonyms are somewhat synonymous with each other.

left RIGHT wrong	right LEFT arrived	soft HARD easy
fall RISE set	spring FALL rise	cold HOT mild
less MORE fewer	gain LOSE win	small GREAT horrible
stranger FRIEND foe	familiar STRANGE ordinary/normal	even ODD ordinary/normal
heavy LIGHT dark	sad HAPPY angry	happy MAD sane
tall SHORT long	thick THIN wide	coarse FINE ill

While I jotted down words and antonyms, a few related word ideas popped up. Because I don't foresee writing up a separate blog article for them separately or collectively, I'm including these miscellaneous thoughts here.

scan: visually skim vs. using a machine to read an image

round shape: circle (2D) vs. sphere (3D)

2D confusion—pane vs. panel

From "Re: Pane or Panel ?":

A pane is a (usually) independently scrollable subsection of a window. It's what you get, for example, if you drag the splitter bar in a Word window.

A panel is an object that is used to group controls and other objects. It is often but not always dragable, occasionally resizable or scrollable. Most toolbars, for example, consist of a panel with buttons. Panels may or may not have a visible border.

From "window pane/panel":

Example: your window is 2 meters in width. The curtains come in 0.5m panels. You will need to buy four panels to cover the window with curtains.

Panels are made of fabric. Panes are made of glass.

As a final thought, I suggest a practical colloquialism to replace "practicable"—"doable". Although "practicable" seems to have finer granularity for definitions, I myself prefer "doable". BTW, I avoided using either word in technical writing.

October 5, 2015 Update

In a discussion about this article on the Publishing and Editing Professionals LinkedIn Group, a commenter pointed out that my 18 words are actually homonyms. Sure enough, one Merriam-Webster definition is "one of two or more words spelled and pronounced alike but different in meaning".

One of the other definitions is "homophone". Merriam-Webster's definition for "homophone" is "a word that is pronounced like another word but is different in meaning, origin, or spelling". Note the additional condition, "spelling". Thus, homophones are a special kind of homonym that often trips up people when they use the incorrect soundalike. And spell checkers don't even flag such words because they're real words.

Homophones—Hear There Everywhere

[This article originally posted to http://thewritejob.blogspot.com/2009/09/homophoneshear-there-everywhere.html on September 16, 2009]

Homophones are dissimilar words that sound the same. Their incorrect usages are especially pervasive on the web—in comments sections in articles, blogs, and forums—where people share their opinions. Professionally written articles tend to have fewer instances of incorrect homophones.

Note: I cribbed various definitions from http://www.merriam-webster.com/

Listing misused homophones below, somewhat sorted regarding the ones I seem to encounter most frequently—YMMV:

• its (singular possessive adjective), it's (contraction for "it is")
• to (toward), two (2nd number), too (also)
• your (possessive adjective), you're (contraction for "you are")
• there (location away), their (plural possessive adjective), they're (contraction for "they are")
• whose (possessive adjective), who's (contraction for "who is")
• here (location near), hear (to aurally sense)
• site (location), sight (view), cite (to quote or attribute)
• roll (bread shape), role (person's function)
• wait (to spend time), weight (gravitational pull)
• strait (example better here—strait jacket, dire straits), straight (example better here—straight arrow)
• rite (ceremony), right (correct, make correct, political leaning)
• hair ("crowning glory"), hare (long-eared rodent)
• hour (division of time), our (plural possessive adjective)
• air (Definition needed?), heir (recipient of property, usually blood-related), err (make mistake)
• birth (a beginning or to cause a beginning), berth (a space allotment)
• wear (clothing or to put something on self or to erode), ware (item)

Listing near-homophones below (homonyms, if you agree with the assertion at http://www.yourdictionary.com/grammar-rules/affect-effect-grammar.html). They lost me with the second sentence. "Homonyms are words that similar, but have very different meanings. Other examples of homonyms are two/to/too, accept/except, and there/their/they're."

• hear, hare
• our, are (plural form of "to be")
• bear (large furry animal, to carry), bare (naked, to become naked), bier (a stand for a coffin or coffin/stand unit), beer (slurp!)
• where, wear
• effect, affect (See http://www.yourdictionary.com/grammar-rules/affect-effect-grammar.html for details of differences.)

With increasing popularity of text messaging, people are not only uploading thoughts wherever or whenever, using multiple choices of tools, they're adding more homophones in the form of newer abbreviations. A couple of examples are "U" for "you", and "UR" for "you're" or "your".