On English Homophones

II. All the following examples involve wh. > w. ⁵

ware (earthen-), ware (aware), wear, where, were.

way, weigh, whey.

weal (wealth), weal (a swelling), wheel.

weald, wield, wheeled.

while, wile.

whine, wine,

white, wight.

whether, weather.

whither, wither.

whig, wig.

whit, wit.

what, wot.

whet, wet.

whirr, were = wer'.

whin, win.

whist, wist.

which, witch, wych (elm).

III. Group of Homophones caused by loss of trilled R. ⁶

ion, iron.

father, farther.

lava, larva.

halm, harm.

calve, carve.

talk, torque.

daw, door.

flaw, floor.

yaw, yore.

law, lore.

laud, lord.

maw, more,

gnaw, nor.

raw, roar.

shaw, shore.

IV. The name of a species (of animals, plants, &c.) is often a homophone. Where there is only one alternative meaning, this causes so little inconvenience that the following names (being in that condition) have been excluded from List I. ⁷

bleak (fish), bleak (adj.).

dace, dais.

gull (bird), gull (s. and v.).

carp, carp (v.).

cod, cod (husk).

codling, coddling (fr. coddle).

flounder (fish), flounder (v.).

quail (bird), quail (v.).

lark (bird), lark (fun).

ling (fish), ling (heather).

mussel, muscle.

nit, knit.

awk, orc.

oriole, aureole.

pike (fish), pike (weapon).

pout (fish), pout (v.).

perch (fish), perch (alight).

plaice, place.

ray (fish), ray (of light).

rook (bird), rook (v.).

skua, skewer.

skate (fish), skate (on ice).

smelt (fish), smelt (fr. smell).

swift (bird), swift (adj.).

swallow (bird), swallow (throat).

tapir, taper.

tern, turn.

teal (fish), teil (tree).

thrush (bird), thrush (disease).

V. The suffix er added to a root often makes homophones. The following are examples. (And see in List VI.)

byre, buyer (who buys).

butter (s.), butter (who butts).

better (adj.), better (who bets).

border, boarder.

dire, dyer.

founder (v.), founder (who founds).

geyser, gazer.

greater, grater (nutmeg).

canter (pace), canter (who cants).

medlar, meddler.

moulder (v.), moulder (who moulds).

pitcher (vessel), pitcher (who pitches).

pillar, piller.

platter, plaiter.

plumper (adj.), plumper (s.).

sounder (adj.), sounder (who sounds).

cellar, seller, &c.

VI. Words excluded from the main list for various reasons, their homophony being rightly questioned by many speakers

actor, acta (sanctorum).

brute, bruit.

direst, diarist.

descent, dissent.

deviser, divisor.

dual, duel.

goffer, golfer.

carrot, carat.

caudle, caudal.

choler, collar.

compliment, complement.

lumber, lumbar.

lesson, lessen.

literal, littoral.

marshal, martial.

minor, miner.

manor, manner.

medal, meddle.

metal, mettle.

missal, missel (thrush).

orphan, often.

putty, puttee.

pedal, peddle.

police, pelisse.

principal, principle.

profit, prophet.

rigour, rigger.

rancour, ranker.

succour, sucker.

sailor, sailer.

cellar, seller.

censor, censer.

surplus, surplice.

symbol, cymbal.

skip, skep.

tuber, tuba.

whirl, whorl.

wert, wort (herb, obs.).

vial, viol.

verdure, verger (in Jones).

VII. Homophones due only to an inflected form of a word. Comparatives of adjectives, &c

adze, adds.

art (s.), art (v.).

bard, barred.

band, banned.

battels, battles (bis).

baste, based.

baize, bays (bis).

bent, bent (pp. bend).

bean, been.

blue, blew.

bode, bowed.

bold, bowled, bolled (obs.).

bald, bawled.

braid, brayed.

bread, bred.

brood, brewed.

bruise, brews.

depose, dépôts.

divers (adj.), divers (plu.).

dug (teat), dug (fr. dig).

duct, ducked.

dust, dost.

daze, days.

daisies, dazes (both inflected).

doze, does (plu. of doe).

aloud, allowed.

fort, fought.

found (v.), found (fr. find)

phase, fays (pl. of fay).

felt (stuff), felt (fr. feel)

furze, firs, and furs.

feed (s. and v.), fee'd.

flatter (v.), flatter (adj.).

phlox, flocks.

phrase, frays.

guise, guys (plu.).

gaud, gored.

gauze, gores.

guest, guessed.

glose, glows.

ground (s.), ground (fr. grind).

graze, greys.

greaves, grieves.

groan, grown.

grocer, grosser.

hire, higher.

herd, heard.

hist, hissed.

hose, hoes.

hawse (naut.), haws, &c.

eaves, eves.

use (v.), ewes, yews.

candid, candied.

clove (s.), clove (fr. cleave).

clause, claws.

cold, coaled.

courser, coarser.

court, caught.

cause, cores, caws.

coir, coyer (fr. coy).

crew (s.), crew (fr. crow).

quartz, quarts.

lighter (s.), lighter (fr. light, adj.).

lax, lacks, &c.

lapse, laps, &c.

lade (v.), laid.

lane, lain.

lead (mineral), led.

left (adj.), left (fr. leave).

Lent, leant, lent (fr. lend).

least, leased.

lees (of wine), leas, &c.

lynx, links.

mind, mined.

madder (plant), madder (fr. mad).

mustard, mustered.

maid, made.

mist, missed.

mode, mowed.

moan, mown.

new, knew, &c.

nose, knows, noes.

aught (a whit), ought (fr. owe).

pact, packed.

paste, paced.

pervade, purveyed.

pyx, picks.

please, pleas.

pause, paws, pores.

pride, pried [bis].

prize, pries.

praise, prays, preys.

rouse, rows.

rasher (bacon), rasher (fr. rash).

raid, rayed.

red, read (p. of to read).

rex, wrecks, recks.

road, rode, rowed.

rote, wrote.

rove (v. of rover), rove (fr. reeve).

rose, rows (var.), roes (var.), rose (v.).

ruse, rues (fr. rue).

side, sighed.

size, sighs.

scene, seen.

seize, seas, sees.

sold, soled (both inflected).

sword, soared.

sort, sought.

span (length), span (fr. spin).

spoke (of wheel), spoke (fr. speak).

stole (s.), stole (fr. steal).

stove (s.), stove (fr. stave).

 

tide, tied.

tax, tacks (various).

tact, tacked.

tease, teas, tees.

toad, towed, toed.

told, tolled.

tract, tracked.

trust, trussed.

chaste, chased (various).

choose, chews.

throne, thrown.

through, threw.

wild, wiled.

wind (roll), whined.

wax, whacks.

wade, weighed.

weld, welled.

word, whirred.

wilt (wither), wilt (fr. will).

ward, warred.

wont, won't.

warn, worn.

VIII. 'False homophones' [see p. 4], doubtful doublets, &c

beam, beam (of light).

bit (horse), bit (piece), bit (fr. bite).

brace, brace.

diet, diet.

deck (cover), deck (adorn).

deal (various).

dram (drink), drachm.

drone (insect), drone (sound).

jest, gest (romance, and obs. senses).

jib (sail), jib (of horses).

fine (adj., v. senses), fine (mulct).

flower, flour.

fleet (s.), fleet (adj.), Fleet (stream).

grain (corn), grain (fibre).

indite, indict.

incense (v. =cense), incense (incite).

kind (adj.), kind (s.).

canvas, canvass.

cuff (sleeve), cuff (strife).

cousin, cozen.

cord, chord (music).

coin, coign.

cotton (s.), cotton (v.).

crank (s.), crank (adj.).

quaver (v.), quaver (music).

levy, levee.

litter (brood), litter (straw).

mantle (cloak), mantle (shelf).

mess (confusion), mess (table).

mussel, muscle.

nail (unguis), nail (clavus).

patent (open), patent (monopoly).

pommel (s.), pummel (v.).

refrain (v.), refrain (s., in verse).

retort (reply), retort (chemical vessel).

second (number), second (of time).

squall (v.), squall (a gale).

slab (s.), slab (adj.).

smart (s. and v., sting), smart (adj.).

stave (of barrel), stave (of music), [stave in (v.)].

stick (s.), stick (v.).

stock (stone), stock (in trade), &c.

strut (a support), strut (to walk).

share (division), share (plough).

sheet (sail and clew), sheet (-anchor).

shear (clip), sheer (clear), sheer off (deviate).

tack (various), tack (naut.).

ton, tun.

wage (earnings), wage (of war).

IX. The following words were not admitted into the main class chiefly on account of their unimportance

ah! are.

arse, ass.

ask, aske (newt)

ayah, ire.

bah! bar, baa.

barb, barb (horse).

bask, basque.

barn, barne = bairn.

budge, budge (stuff).

buff, buff.

buffer, buffer.

berg, burgh (suffixes).

bin, bin = been.

broke (v. of broke), broke (fr. break).

broom, brume (fog).

darn, darn.

fizz, phiz.

few, feu.

forty, forte.

hay, heigh!

hem (sew), hem (v., haw).

hollow, hollo (v.).

inn, in.

yawl (boat), yawl (howl).

coup, coo.

lamb, lam (bang).

loaf, loaf (v. laufen).

marry! marry (v.).

nag (pony), nag (to gnaw), knag.

nap (of cloth), nap (sleep).

nay, neigh.

oh! owe.

ode, owed.

oxide, ox-eyed.

pax, packs.

pants, pants (fr. pant).

prose, pros (and cons).

sink (var.), cinque.

swayed, suede (kid).

ternary, turnery.

tea, tee (starting point).

taw (to dress skins), taw (game, marbles), tore (fr. tear).

cheap, cheep.

tool, tulle,

we! woe.

ho! hoe.

The facts of the case being now sufficiently supplied by the above list, I will put my attitude towards those facts in a logical sequence under separate statements, which thus isolated will, if examined one by one, avoid the confusion that their interdependence might otherwise occasion. The sequence is thus:

1. Homophones are a nuisance.

2. They are exceptionally frequent in English.

3. They are self-destructive, and tend to become obsolete.

4. This loss impoverishes the language.

5. This impoverishment is now proceeding owing to the prevalence of the Southern English standard of speech.

6. The mischief is being worsened and propagated by the phoneticians.

7. The Southern English dialect has no claim to exclusive preference.

1. That homophones are a nuisance

An objector who should plead that homophones are not a nuisance might allege the longevity of the Chinese language, composed, I believe, chiefly of homophones distinguished from each other by an accentuation which must be delicate difficult and precarious. I remember that Max Müller [1864] instanced a fictitious sentence

ba bà bâ bá,

'which (he wrote) is said to mean if properly accented The three ladies gave a box on the ear to the favourite of the princess.' This suggests that the bleating of sheep may have a richer significance than we are accustomed to suppose; and it may perhaps illustrate the origin as well as the decay of human speech. The only question that it raises for us is the possibility of distinguishing our own homophones by accentuation or by slight differentiation of vowels; and this may prove to be in some cases the practical solution, but it is not now the point in discussion, for no one will deny that such delicate distinctions are both inconvenient and dangerous, and should only be adopted if forced upon us. I shall assume that common sense and universal experience exonerate me from wasting words on the proof that homophones are mischievous, and I will give my one example in a note⁸; but it is a fit place for some general remarks.

The objections to homophones are of two kinds, either scientific and utilitarian, or æsthetic. The utilitarian objections are manifest, and since confusion of words is not confined to homophones, the practical inconvenience that is sometimes occasioned by slight similarities may properly be alleged to illustrate and enforce the argument. I will give only one example.

Utilitarian objections not confined to homophones.

The telephone, which seems to lower the value of differentiating consonants, has revealed unsuspected likenesses. For instance the ciphers, if written somewhat phonetically as usually pronounced, are thus:

by which it will be seen that the ten names contain eight but only eight different vowels, 0 and 4 having the same vowel aw, while 5 and 9 have ai. Both these pairs caused confusion; the first of them was cured by substituting the name of the letter O for the name of the zero cipher, which happens to be identical with it in form,⁹ and this introduced a ninth vowel sound ou (= owe), but the other pair remained such a constant source of error, that persons who had their house put on the general telephonic system would request the Post Office to give them a number that did not contain a 9 or a 5; and it is pretty certain that had not the system of automatic dialling, which was invented for quite another purpose, got rid of the trouble, one of these two ciphers would have changed its name at the Post Office.

Æsthetic objections.

In the effect of uniformity it may be said that utilitarian and æsthetic considerations are generally at one; and this blank statement must here suffice, for the principle could not be briefly dealt with: but it follows from it that the proper æsthetic objections to homophones are never clearly separable from the scientific. I submit the following considerations. Any one who seriously attempts to write well-sounding English will be aware how delicately sensitive our ear is to the repetition of sounds. He will often have found it necessary to change some unimportant word because its accented vowel recalled and jarred with another which was perhaps as far as two or three lines removed from it: nor does there seem to be any rule for this, since apparently similar repetitions do not always offend, and may even be agreeable. The relation of the sound to the meaning is indefinable, but in homophones it is blatant; for instance the common expression It is well could not be used in a paragraph where the word well (= well-spring) had occurred. Now, this being so, it is very inconvenient to find the omnipresent words no and know excluding each other: and the same is true of sea and see; if you are writing of the sea then the verb to see is forbidden, or at least needs some handling.

I see the deep's untrampled floor

With green and purple seaweeds strewn:

here seaweeds is risky, but I see the sea's untrampled floor would have been impossible: even the familiar

The sea saw that and fled

is almost comical, especially because 'sea saw' has a most compromising joint-tenant in the children's rocking game

See saw Margery daw.

The awkwardness of these English homophones is much increased by the absence of inflection, and I suppose it was the richness of their inflections which made the Greeks so indifferent (apparently) to syllabic recurrences that displease us: moreover, the likeness in sound between their similar syllables was much obscured by a verbal accent which respected the inflection and disregarded the stem, whereas our accent is generally faithful to the root.¹⁰ This sensitiveness to the sound of syllables is of the essence of our best English, and where the effect is most magical in our great poets it is impossible to analyse.

Once become sensible of such beauty, and of the force of sounds, a writer will find himself in trouble with no and know. These omnipresent words are each of them essentially weakened by the existence of the other, while their proximity in a sentence is now damaging. It is a misfortune that our Southern dialect should have parted entirely with all the original differentiation between them; for after the distinctive k of the verb was dropped, the negative still preserved (as it in some dialects still preserves) its broad open vowel, more like law than toe or beau, and unless that be restored I should judge that the verb to know is doomed. The third person singular of its present tense is nose, and its past tense is new, and the whole inconvenience is too radical and perpetual to be received all over the world. We have an occasional escape by using nay for no, since its homophone neigh is an unlikely neighbour; but that can serve only in one limited use of the word, and is no solution.

Punnage.

In talking with friends the common plea that I have heard for homophones is their usefulness to the punster. 'Why! would you have no puns?' I will not answer that question; but there is no fear of our being insufficiently catered for; whatever accidental benefit be derivable from homophones, we shall always command it fully and in excess; look again at the portentous list of them! And since the essential jocularity of a pun (at least when it makes me laugh) lies in a humorous incongruity, its farcical gaiety may be heightened by a queer pronunciation. I cannot pretend to judge a sophisticated taste; but, to give an example, if, as I should urge, the o of the word petrol should be preserved, as it is now universally spoken, not having yet degraded into petr'l, a future squire will not be disqualified from airing his wit to his visitors by saying, as he points to his old stables, 'that is where I store my petrel', and when the joke had been illustrated in Punch, its folly would sufficiently distract the patients in a dentist's waiting-room for years to come, in spite of gentlemen and chauffeurs continuing to say petrol, as they do now; nor would the two petr'ls be more dissimilar than the two mys.

Play on words.

Puns must of course be distinguished from such a play on words as John of Gaunt makes with his own name in Shakespeare's King Richard II.

K. What comfort man? How is't with aged Gaunt?

G. O, how that name befits my composition!

Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old, &c.

where, as he explains,

Misery makes sport to mock itself.

This is a humorous indulgence of fancy, led on by the associations of a word; a pun is led off by the sound of a word in pursuit of nonsense; though the variety of its ingenuity may refuse so simple a definition.

An indirect advantage of homophones.

It is true that a real good may sometimes come indirectly from a word being a homophone, because its inconvenience in common parlance may help to drive it into a corner where it can be retained for a special signification: and since the special significance of any word is its first merit, and the coinage of new words for special differentiation is difficult and rare, we may rightly welcome any fortuitous means for their provision. Examples of words specialized thus from homophones are brief (a lawyer's brief), hose (water-pipe), bolt (of door), mail (postal), poll (election), &c.¹¹

2. That English is exceptionally burdened with homophones

This is a reckless assertion; it may be that among the languages unknown to me there are some that are as much hampered with homophones as we are. I readily grant that with all our embarrassment of riches, we cannot compete with the Chinese nor pretend to have outbuilt their Babel; but I doubt whether the statement can be questioned if confined to European languages. I must rely on the evidence of my list, and I would here apologize for its incompleteness. After I had patiently extracted it from the dictionary a good many common words that were missing occurred to me now and again, and though I have added these, there must be still many omissions. Nor must it be forgotten that, had obsolete words been included, the total would have been far higher. That must plainly be the case if, as I contend, homophony causes obsolescence, and reference to the list from Shakespeare in my next section will provide examples of such words.

Otto Jespersen¹² seems to think that the inconvenience of homophones is so great that a language will naturally evolve some phonetic habit to guard itself against them, although it would otherwise neglect such distinction. I wish that this admirable instinct were more evident in English. He writes thus of the lists of words which he gives 'to show what pairs of homonyms [homophones] would be created if distinctions were abolished that are now maintained: they [the lists] thus demonstrate the force of resistance opposed to some of the sound-changes which one might imagine as happening in the future. A language can tolerate only a certain number of ambiguities arising from words of the same sound having different significations, and therefore the extent to which a language has utilized some phonetic distinction to keep words apart, has some influence in determining the direction of its sound-changes. In French, and still more in English, it is easy to enumerate long lists of pairs of words differing from each other only by the presence or absence of voice in the last sound; therefore final b and p, d and t, g and k, are kept rigidly apart; in German, on the other hand, there are very few such pairs, and thus nothing counterbalances the natural tendency to unvoice final consonants.'

3. That homophones are self-destructive and tend to become obsolete.

For the contrary contention, namely, that homophones do not destroy themselves, there is prima facie evidence in the long list of survivors, and in the fact that a vast number of words which have not this disadvantage are equally gone out of use.

Causes of obsolescence.

Words fall out of use for other reasons than homophony, therefore one cannot in any one case assume that ambiguity of meaning was the active cause: indeed the mere familiarity of the sound might prolong a word's life; and homophones are themselves frequently made just in this way, for uneducated speakers will more readily adapt a familiar sound to a new meaning (as when my gardener called his Pomeranian dog a Panorama) than take the trouble to observe and preserve the differentiation of a new sound. There is no rule except that any loss of distinction may be a first step towards total loss.¹³

It is probable that the working machinery of an average man's brain sets a practical limit to his convenient workable vocabulary; that is to say, a man who can easily command the spontaneous use of a certain number of words cannot much increase it without effort. If that is so, then, as he learns new words, there will be a tendency, if not a necessity, for him to lose hold of a corresponding number of his old words; and the words that will first drop out will be those with which he had hitherto been uncomfortable; and among those words will be the words of ambiguous meaning.

No direct proof

It is plain that only general considerations can be of value, unless there should be very special evidence in any special case; and thus the caution of Dr. Henry Bradley's remarks in note on page 19.

I remember how I first came to recognize this law; it was from hearing a friend advocating the freer use of certain old words which, though they were called obsolete and are now rarely heard, yet survive in local dialects. I was surprised to find how many of them were unfit for resuscitation because of their homophonic ambiguity, and when I spoke of my discovery to a philological friend, I found that he regarded it as a familiar and unquestioned rule.

But to prove this rule is difficult; and as it is an impossible task to collect all the obsolete words and classify them, I am proposing to take two independent indications; first to separate out the homophones from the other obsolete words in a Shakespearian glossary, and secondly, to put together a few words that seem to be actually going out of use in the present day, that is, strictly obsolescent words caught in the act of flitting.

Obsolescence defined.

Obsolescence in this connexion must be understood only of common educated speech, that is, the average speaker's vocabulary. Obsolescent words are old words which, when heard in talk, will sound literary or unusual: in literature they can seem at home, and will often give freshness without affectation; indeed, any word that has an honourable place in Shakespeare or the Bible can never quite die, and may perhaps some day recover its old vitality.

Evidence of obsolescence.

The best evidence of the obsolescence of any word is that it should still be frequently heard in some proverb or phrase, but never out of it. The homophonic condition is like that of aural and oral, of which it is impossible to make practical use.¹⁴ We speak of an aural surgeon and of oral teaching, but out of such combinations the words have no sense. It happens that oral teaching must be aural on the pupil's side, but that only adds to the confusion.