Arc & Ark

Couldn't make up my mind which pair of drawings to post today. On the one hand, I like the similarity of shapes in this one:

On the other hand, any excuse to run this one again is good enough for me:

Bare & Bear

I like this one; a set of homophones that includes three different parts of speech and a pair of homonyms!
Bare – (adj. / v.) uncovered / to uncover.
Bear – (n.) a type of large carnivorous animal. / (v.) to carry.

Avert & Overt

Avert – INDY: Shut your eyes, Marion. Don't look at it no matter what happens.
Overt – BELLOQ: It's beautiful!
Everything about this scene – from the intense power of the Ark, to face-melting Nazis – was totally overt. But Indy and Marion averted their eyes and missed the whole thing.

And no comments about Indy's outfit, please. :) I know he wasn't wearing his usual get-up during this scene; I just wanted to make it obvious who was tied up there, so I went with the iconic hat and whip.

A parent & Apparent

Venturing into new territory today with a word whose homophone is made of two separate words. I know what you're thinking – from here it's only a short, slippery slope to "'scuse me while I kiss this guy." So I promise I'll tread carefully (though I may have to do that one some day; it's too hard to pass up the opportunity to draw a pictograph version of Jimi).

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!

T, tea, tee

T time.

Hair & Hare

This word pair surely marks one of the first times I became aware of homophones. (Although, I suppose, if I'm going to be honest, it was more likely "but"and "butt.") To this day, it's one of the first homophone pairs that springs to mind when someone asks for an example, right behind "bare" and "bear."
In fact, given my love of illustrating animals, I should compile all the animal homophones together sometime – hare, ant, moose, horse, bear, mussel, boar, deer, ewe/ewes, flea, gorilla, lynx. Gulp, I guess I've got my work cut out for me.
Any I'm missing? Jay? Hart? Oooh, I may have to go back and revise "rays." Dang.

Emigrate & Immigrate

OK, so, technically these aren't homophones. But they're close. And from time to time I do hear "emigrate" used where "immigrate" should be. (I'm looking at you, NPR.)
One never emigrates TO a place. One always emigrates FROM a place.












Ah, Paris. We all have dreams, don't we?

Carat, Caret, Carrot, Karat

Carat – a measure of weight used mainly for gemstones, equal to 200 mg.

Caret – a typographic mark shaped like an inverted V.

Carrot – a plant of the parsley family, or its edible root.

Karat – a measure of the percentage of gold in an alloy, equal to 4.1667%. (Though it is worth noting that outside the US, this spelling is not used. Instead, this AND the gemstone usage are both spelled "carat.")

Flour & Flower

Maybe we can call bakeries "flourist shops"?

Days & Daze

It's Christmas Eve. And since tomorrow I'll be unable to escape the primordial Land Without Internet, this week's post comes a day early. Consider it an early Christmas gift. Or your fifth Hanukkah gift. Or maybe we're just really late for Diwali.
At any rate, whatever you celebrate, happy holi-

Cent, Scent, Sent

Cent – (n.) a penny, one hundredth of a dollar.
Scent – (n.) a smell, an odor.
Sent – (v.) past tense of send.


*Images not to scale  :)

Ant & Aunt

Not to be confused. One communicates mainly by scent. And the other can lift many times its own body weight.

Capital & Capitol

With an A – refers to uppercase letters, an accumulation of available wealth (with some indecipherable Econ 101 definition, I'm sure), or a city which is the seat of a country's or state's government.

With an O – the building itself used by a country's or state's legislative officials.

And don't forget, Capitol must always be capitalized.

"I'm going to take all my capital out of the bank and spend it on a trip to our nation's capital, where I'll write an angrily misspelled protest sign in capital letters and hold it up in front of the Capitol."

Sighs & Size

Rose & Rows

This week a pair of homophones, both of which are also pairs of homonyms. So for each word we have two separate definitions.
Rose –
(n.) the flower which by any other name, I've read somewhere would smell the same.
(v.) past tense of rise.
Rows –
(n.) plural form of row: objects arranged more or less in a straight line.
(v.) third person singular present tense (or something like that) of row: to propel a boat with an oar.

PS, Please no horticulturalists nitpicking the rose plants, OK?