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Homonyms are words that sound similar
but are spelled and mean different things.
Examples of words frequently confused:

To
Too
Two

Their
There
They're

Then
Than

How about some definitions next time!

Instead of definitions I will provide
a sentence for each using the word.

To - You are going TO hell in a hand basket.
Too - Some people are TOO dumb for college.
Two - You want to own TWO brand new rigs.

Their - THEIR bridge is lower than our bridge.
There - THERE is the exit point on the balcony.
They're - THEY'RE a wild bunch at bridge day.

Then - If you pull real low THEN you risk injury.
Than - Tree is much taller THAN Tom Aiello.

dont forget it's a lot not alot

I think GreenMachine needs another game of chess to occupy his mind...

We have to play another game bro

In person at Outback after some jumps
would be best but online will do...

Add these to the list please:

Break
Brake

lose
loose

loser
looser

your
you're

Take care,
space

Wait a minute, 'Take care' and 'space' aren't homonyms...

Nice
end of message.
Take care,
space

can not
cannot

 

Not quite.

There is a grammatical misunderstanding common to many U.S. Americans, largely because we learned about grammar in the either/or terms of right vs. wrong. Here's the misunderstanding: can not or cannot? My public school teachers said can not was the correct form, and that cannot was a corruption. A friend of mine from a previous generation was taught the opposite. Her son, much better at using the language than either of us, said both were right, but usage depended on context.

Here's the explanation: If I can not do something, then I can also do it. I can not write these words if I choose (and you may think I shouldn't), but I also can, and am, writing them. What I cannot do is know who will read them, or what they will think. I can imagine such things, but I'm limited by my experience and perceptions. So this is the rule: if you either could or could not do something, then you use two words, because you can leave out the second word if you so choose. If you could not do something no matter how much you desired or tried, then you use one word, cannot. There is no other option.

Sometimes both are true. Witness:

I cannot change the world.

I can not change the world.

It's true, I cannot change the world. What I mean, and what many mean when they say or think this to themselves, is that the world's problems are too big for any one person, or group of people, to take on. Poverty, sickness, hatred, love, weather, earthquakes, political and religious differences—these are inevitable conditions. Even Jesus said, "the poor you will have with you always," and, "Let the dead bury the dead."

It's also true that I can change the world. I, and every other person on the planet, can make a difference. We can give to the poor, and try to cure ourselves of the sickness of wealth (more on that later). We can be courteous, we can provide emotional (listening) or physical (assisting) or financial (donating) help to others, we can feed and help and forgive each other. (More about forgiveness later, too.) We can take in an abandoned dog or cat and give it love. We can plant a garden. We can put in a day's work and know we earned our pay, and someone, hopefully, was the better for it. We can not cut off someone in traffic. We can dedicate our lives to healing. We can dedicate our lives to loving our family and community. We can respect the differences of others. In other words, what we can do, we can do.

Grammar is the tool we use to communicate and should be taught as such. Our bodies, our minds, and our voices are the tools we have to interact with our universe. We must use them while we live; we cannot evade using them except through death or dire injury. In this sense we cannot not change the world. And now, while the world suffers on every level, from the sky to the deeps of the sea, from humans to tiny coral polyps, we can make what time we have count.

Don't berate yourself for previous behavior. Don't congratulate yourself, either. Just take the next opportunity to make a difference to the next person, and help make what we cannot change bearable.


Source: ==>.

So... you never got to the part about forgiveness and the sickness of wealth. Do continue, O wise one! I cannot bear the suspense

oh that part where it says "(more on that later)"


yeah... go ahead and forget that part.

Edit: Being an English for Dummies thread, the word you mean is bare, not bear.
Adding:

bare
bear

Really? I'm pretty sure it's bear. Bare is for phrases like 'Bare-assed' or 'Bare necessities' (unless you're singing the song from the Jungle Book)

You are correct. I am not. Bear and bear are 2 different words.

bare
bear
bear

Ain't

Cain't


Haint

your and you're also need yore - days of old, speaking of the past

One thing that irks me is when people use "alot" vs "a lot" or "noone" vs "no one."

you'll
yule

tear - to rip something
tare - an adjustment made for the weight of the packaging in order to determine the net weight of the goods

tire - rubber wheel
tire - to become tired
tyre - the way they spell tire in south africa

not
knot
naught

knotty
naughty

Re-arrange the letters from nor do we to make one word

I swear I've read most of the English for Dummies but I still don't understand that sentence.

"nor do we", becomes "one word" when you re-arrange the letters.

:Smacks forehead

is that one of the Mensa riddles?
I missed it as well...

(it's not Monday, dammit!)

Isn't it a mind fuck that one word?
From the language perspective one man is one man, two dollars is two dollars, blue sky is blue sky and it makes perfect sense.
Not for one word. One word is not one word and in the same time one word is one word! It depends on how you look at the sentence.

Does anybody wonder why we think in a language? And assuming that one person never learns a language, how would he be thinking (more/less, more/less efficient?)?

Yah, it's pretty crazy how deep language can be. I'm taking "critical thinking / logic" right now working on a medical associates and the book just covered ambiguity and how it can be used for good and evil

like a wolf? they have movies on this stuff...

Communication is an interesting thing where we humans
take thoughts, cram them into words, and then say them
to the listener who then has to decode the words back
into thoughts.

Not a perfect method, but it usually gets the job done and
will have to do till we can develop telepathy.

One of the very important things about meditation is to
train one's mind to spend time without thinking in words.
This state increases one's awareness of things we usually
pay little attention to, such as breathing, heart rate, etc.

Even more fun to think about is how we assign words to images, or how people forget that representational imagery is not the thing itself, i.e. someone shows you a picture of a chair and asks you what it is, the correct answer is "a photograph of a chair" and not "a chair." Otherwise, we become like that case in Australia where fictional characters are given human rights and it is wrong to own graphic novels that contain a drawing of a fictional child being raped because it somehow becomes child pornography--even though no child was used. Ink and paper was.

So language goes even beyond words, and beyond how we think, it is how we arrange the world. Words and images become "reality" instead of being a representation of someones view of reality.

Thinking hurts sometimes.

Also, they did a test a long time ago keeping a child from other people and inhibiting social contact--and language--and the kid became extremely unhealthy mentally and physically and died.

And how about us folks that know some of multiple languages? It's fun to catch yourself mixing french and japanese with english when you're thinking.

When I first got to Germany on R&R I caught myself thanking people and saying hello in Arabic, and then when I got back to Kuwait and then Iraq I was doing it in German. The only thinking I've done in other languages though is when I'm trying to translate from english to those languages. Probably because I'm not proficient in any language other than english.

Do you really think that we convert generic thoughts into words or is it the other way around the language is the tool we use to think with? My feeling is that our thinking gets bounded by our natal language.
I agree that we should shut down our thinking more but that's tricky to do ...

It sounds that because we have articulated thinking the elements that we use to think with they exists too (just like we do) in the same reality with us.

Somehow, I connect this to 2 ideas that are on different poles:
-life is how you see it and mostly life is how you choose to see it.
-Bullshit is the glue that keeps together the society.

Don't know if it makes sense or not but I feel that they are somehow connected.

No, it makes perfect sense, and I fully agree

Or that could just be more BS....

What is Natal language? Googled it and
not sure which one you were referencing.

YES, I do think we humans convert our
thoughts into words... and really do not
understand your use of the word Generic.

Do you have name brand thoughts?

Listen to a 20 year old white, woman who
wants to explain some particular idea or
thought, when lacking the vocabulary, they
will sub in the word 'Like' many times (ugh).

Also, we keep inventing to new words, sure
many times this is just bullshit bingo by the
marketers and cube gods...

But often it is because there is a new idea
that does not have a name yet. Make sense?

By natal language I mean birth language (1st language). natalis natalis : birthday in latin. My natal language is a latin language so I'm bound by it

the last part makes perfect sense, to me at least. Every language is fluid and changes with time

I find it troubling that you specify 20 year old white woman as the only user of "like" because most of the "likers" I know are white men in their early 20s (with the exception of my roommate, but that's a hatred for a different time).

Just sayin. You shouldn't specify something that's a lot more general. It's like me saying that the only douche bags in the world are BASE jumpers, or the only hypocrites are politicians.

You are very right, the demographic I
used as an example is NOT the only
group that does that.

Originally I was going to include other
examples such as construction guys
who use fuck in place of real words
or black guys who use you know in
random places, etc.

But figured people would get my drift
with only one example...

And of course you personally come
across as very articulate based on
your written communication.

Thanks! And yeah, I know you probably didn't mean it that specifically.

But the "like" thing is an issue that I have a big problem with. Imagine, 15 years down the line, politicians using the speech pattern. People will hate them even MORE!

I hate the whole "like" expression. It's like ... oh darn ... It sounds as if we are living in the valley girl days of California. My exgirlfriend used to use it all the time despite her being extremely literate and well educated.

^Your usage of like would have been appropriate--using it as a comparison. But, yeah, that's the heart of the matter. No matter how educated or intelligent someone is, even if you know they are, they sound like dumbasses when they use "like" inappropriately or overuse it.