I hope their books don't get wet.

It's satisfyingly ironic that I found this photo caption in an article about academic proficiency. Homophones-as-typo strike again!

Muscle & Mussel

Pistil & Pistol

-il – the ovule/seed-producing reproductive organ of a flower. Named for its resemblance to a pestle.
-ol – handgun; though sometimes defined as a subset of handguns in which the chamber and barrel are integrated into a single unit. Of course, if you find someone willing to nitpick this point with you, that's probably a discussion you should back slowly away from.

Discussed & Disgust

Funny how often these two go hand-in-hand (I'm looking at you, Republican debates).

plurals

Ordinarily, I wouldn't dedicate a new post to plural forms of homophones I've already drawn. Hairs/hares just isn't different enough from hair/hare. Why bother?
Well, I'll tell you why bother! Because there are special occasions where those plural forms become homophones of an extra word that didn't appear in the original group. Exciting!
So if you pluralize last week's nouns T/tea/tee, they're not that interesting on their own. But! But! They suddenly gain a fourth companion (like a bloated Doctor Who episode), and get to hang out with a verb: "tease."

Likewise, cent/scent/sent from a few weeks back is interesting because although "sent" can't be pluralized, if you pluralize "cent" and "scent" they become homophones of "sense."

Now we just need a homophone for "senses" and we can continue the pattern. But don't think I'll stoop to using "census."
Although... then we could do "censuses"....
No! No more! This post is over!