Taught & Taut

With the gh – (v.) past tense of Teach.
Without the gh – (adj.) stretched tightly.
As in, "I just taught you what taut means."

Moan & Mown

As in, "You can complain all you want, but you still have to cut the grass. Now get out there."
–my dad, circa 1993.
–my wife, circa 2003.
–me, circa 2013.

Shone & Shown

-one – past tense of Shine.
-own – past tense of Show.

Albumen & Albumin

-en – Yes, egg whites actually have a name.
-in – a protein found in, among other things, egg whites.
I'm sure this will come in very handy in your day-to-day writing...

Mandrel & Mandrill

-el – a tool component used to clamp moving parts of the tool itself or the item being worked upon.
-ill – a species of brightly colored primates, the largest of the monkeys.

Mantel & Mantle

-el – A covering, often decorative, surrounding a fireplace. A great place to hang socks full of chocolate.

-le – This one has a lot of definitions, including: the layer of the earth between the core and the crust, and apparently some kind of cape-like cloak. But it's also a verb that describes the very act of cloaking something or concealing it. So, technically, you mantle your fireplace with a mantel. So that's not confusing at all.

Happy holidays!

And, for the sports fans:

Board & Bored

As in, "I just can't concentrate on this meeting."


As in, "I put a hole through this plank."

Desert & Dessert

This pair of words is a little more complicated than most here at HW, because half the time they aren't homophones at all. Desert has two distinct definitions and pronunciations, only one of which is pronounced like Dessert (de-ZURT). So, technically, we have three words here: two of which have the same spelling but different pronunciations (homographs), and a third that is a homophone of one of the homographs. Sheesh, sorry about that. Anyway, you can see that no matter which definition you intend, it's always a challenge making sure it's spelled correctly.
The trick I was taught to remember is that Dessert has two Ss instead of one because it's the only one you want MORE of. But this trick only holds up until you've eaten pumpkin pie, at which point the sentence "I wish I could desert this dessert in the desert" leaps to mind.

Heroin & Heroine

What a difference a silent E makes.

Bolder & Boulder

An old post gets a second life! (I'm either bolder than usual this week, or lazier.)

Locks & Lox

Locks – chambers for raising and lowering ships to different levels of a waterway. Or devices used to secure a storage container. (Notice these are plural nouns. But "locks" is also a present tense verb form for using a lock.)

Lox – brined salmon. (Notice this is a singular noun, and I don't believe it has a plural form. Lox can be measured in plural amounts or pieces or varieties, etc. But as far as I can tell you can't have "loxes." I could be wrong here, of course.)

As in, "The captain locks the lox in a box using locks, until the ship is through the locks." A perfectly logical sentence.
By the way, I would have posted this earlier in the day, honestly, but I started drawing and then was like, "oh my god I have to go buy some bagels and lox right now." #soimpressionable

Also, please note I didn't include the word "lochs," because although it's fairly common in certain English usage (well, pretty much "Loch Ness monster" and nothing else), the word isn't actually English. So I didn't include it. Anyway, it's Gaelic for "lake."

Pole & Poll

Seeing this now, it suddenly looks like a Get Out The Vote ad.

Plain & Plane

Two separate images today, to accommodate multiple definitions.
-ain – 1: (adj.) simple, unadorned. 2: (n.) grassy field.
-ane – 1: 2-dimensional surface. 2: abbreviation for airplane.

(If I had made that second cake a wedding cake, I suppose I could have dedicated this post to my friends Rachel & Chris, whose marriage commences today! Instead, in their honor, I'll look back at a few previous wedding-themed posts.)

Which & Witch

Happy Halloween!

Paced & Paste

As in, "I paced worriedly when I realized I had eaten the rubber cement instead of paste."

Feat & Feet

ea – (n.) An achievement that requires great skill or strength.
ee – (plural n.) Those standy-walky things on the ends of your legs. Or units of measure equivalent to twelve inches.

Continence & Continents

Another -ence vs -ents homophone this week:
-ence – (n.) Let's just call it "the ability to hold it in."
-ents – (plural n.) The big chunks of land floating around the earth.

Correspondence & Correspondents

-ence – (n.) Remote communication (usually written) between two or more people.
-ents – (plural n.) The people doing the communicating.

Weak & Week

My apologies to any latter-day Mayans out there who don't recognize the image on the right as a calendar.

Waist & Waste

As my lovely wife Vanessa put it, "Some people waste away to get a smaller waist."