Homage to Homophones and Better Blogging

8
340 followers
Updated

We Are Judged

We build websites. We blog on those websites. We hope to generate income from the information we share (blog) on our websites. Why is it then, that we pay so little attention to proper use of the tool we have chosen, the English Language? Are we slaves to Spellcheck or just lazy? Have we suppressed memories of the grammar we learned in elementary school?

A professor once told our class that she was ultimately distracted by the misuse of language by a writer no matter how otherwise superior an assigned paper might be. She said she could never get past a simple unedited flaw.

Who are our target demographics? Do they care how mindful we are of word choice? Are we willing to wager future earnings that they don't?

Homophone Abuse

  • your-you're
  • its-it's
  • cite-sight
  • there-they're-their
  • affect-effect
  • ad-add
  • to-too-two
  • decent-descent
  • council-counsel
  • capital-capitol
  • conscious-conscience
  • bare-bear

The list is long and the frequency of occurrence is on the rise. If we misuse a homophone in our blog or website, there's a good chance that the impression we make will not be the one we were trying to make.

Seeking a Cure

  1. Be aware of the use of homonyms, homophones, and homographs. The fact that the prefix "homo" is the unifying feature of these three words clues the reader that by their nature they are tricky. They either look the same, sound the same or are spelled the same and yet usage and meaning is vastly different. So pay a little extra attention to usage.
  2. Let's use the resources here at WA to help edit our work.
  3. Don't put complete trust in Spellcheck. It's not qualified to be our grammar savior.

Sew keep rite on trying and never let you're hopes bee dimmed bye the unfounded criticism of others. Press onward and upward and don't let there mean words effect you. You sea what I did they're?



Login
Create Your Free Wealthy Affiliate Account Today!
icon
4-Steps to Success Class
icon
One Profit Ready Website
icon
Market Research & Analysis Tools
icon
Millionaire Mentorship
icon
Core “Business Start Up” Training

Recent Comments

9

Fortunately my writing skills are in pretty good shape. Always got A's and B's in English through high school and college. But my spelling is atrocious. I use spell check, but am finding I'd rather just Google the word. This way I get a spell check and a meaning to assure I'm using the word properly in context.

My Mom used to tell me I learned to read and write in a school system that kept switching back and forth between "phonics" and "word recognition" I never really recovered from that. So I resort to my Google check described above after spell check has identified the spelling error.

Good post and yes we do have to check these things over and Sui does have a point even some of the tools used for checking these things can be flawed and not pick up certain spelling errors

Thank you for tis blog. great reading and writing inspiration.

I hear you. I just published a training module addressing some of the TOP errors. Will it help? Maybe but people will still run their content through spell check and think it's ok. As you know, spell check does NOT catch these errors.

All I can say is..I tried and so did you. :-) ~Debbi

We did and we'll keep trying. Lots of folks don't realize it's more than just off-putting. It can impact their revenue.

EXACTLY!

As an ex-English teacher, I can't help reading posts and wanting to take out my red pen!

My kids still call me the grammar police lol. I so agree :)

Shoudnt it be sea what I did their? You so write its all about good gramar beeing essential.

See more comments

Login
Create Your Free Wealthy Affiliate Account Today!
icon
4-Steps to Success Class
icon
One Profit Ready Website
icon
Market Research & Analysis Tools
icon
Millionaire Mentorship
icon
Core “Business Start Up” Training