Some time ago I thought up an English word game that has some parallels to this.
👉 List as many homophonous triplets as you can that all have different orthographic forms. In other words, these are distinctly written words that are pronounced identically.
Example: to, too, two
👉 List as many homophonous triplets as you can that all have different orthographic forms. In other words, these are distinctly written words that are pronounced identically.
Example: to, too, two
https://twitter.com/JPRidgeway/status/1448921140341231662
As far as I know there are no on-line tools that can help with this, you have to do it using your own brain.
Results will differ to some extent depending on the dialect of spoken English you use as your basis for determining homophony.
Results will differ to some extent depending on the dialect of spoken English you use as your basis for determining homophony.
You may be surprised at how many such triplets there are! I'm sure you can come up with some that I haven't thought of.
The existence of these triplets raises a lot of the same issues that the Japanese exercise does: differences between spoken and written language, the value of orthographic distinctions where none exist in speech; the role of context in helping listeners and readers identify words
; the advantages and disadvantages of orthographic depth and shallowness; etc. etc.
And here's a follow-up question: Does English have any ortographically distinct sets of FOUR spoken homophones?
And here's a follow-up question: Does English have any ortographically distinct sets of FOUR spoken homophones?
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