Their our many reasons behind homophone mistakes...

By Emily Carter

 

Do you know what the most common homophone mistake is? Well, according to the research I have made the most common homophone mistake is with the words 'their', 'there' and 'they're'. This is because they are very common words within English language.  As we all know they are pronounced the same yet spelt differently and have different definitions; which are the main reason they are always confused.

Let's go through this simply and hopefully solve some people's confusion. 'There' refers to a place. 'Their' shows possession or belonging. And finally 'They're' is simply a contraction of 'they are'. Simple enough? Surely it is.

 

But is this actually a mistake or just a preference as to which one you use? This depends on your approach, I guess. There are two different ways of approaching this matter. Firstly having a descriptive approach and secondly having a prescriptive approach.

 

A descriptive approach is believing that there are many different variations of homophones therefore it doesn't actually matter which way you spell it, and that it is just a preference. However, taking a prescriptive approach suggests that there is one single way which is considered correct. Therefore getting this spelling 'wrong' suggests that you are uneducated and are making an actual mistake. These are theories which were stated by David Crystal in his book The English Language, 1988.

 

Also it has been stated that irregular spellings of words are more likely to have mistakes made with them, however this is within all ages because it depends on the word not the age group which is spelling the words. For example, the world 'blue' is a regular spelling whereas 'blew', also pronounced the same is the irregular spelling of 'blue'. Whether you knew this already, or not, then they do not have the same definition. Spellings like these are confused on a daily basis and, well, it needs to stop!

 

It is thought that the uneducated are more likely to make homophone mistakes. However is this really true? In some cases yes as being taught the correct way to spell homophones would solve some problems with the mistakes that are made. However it could also be due to pure laziness or even dyslexia, along with many other unknown personal reasons. Laziness has been said to restrict the learning of many. Restricting because, well, if you don't want to learn then you won't! Dyslexia is a common issue which holds back many people from being able to spell to a high standard as well as delaying speech and other aspects of learning. This could be a very serious condition which restricts learning and something you cannot control yourself. As it is a condition which you are unable to control then why should those with dyslexia be seen as uneducated when making spelling and homophone mistakes? This doesn't seem fair to me.