Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in Shall We Dance, the 1937 movie where they sang “Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off” on rollerskates. Photograph: Masheter Movie Archive/Alamy
Can you solve it? I say tomato, you say tomato
Pronunciation puzzles: A homonym is a word that has the same pronunciation as, or is spelt identical to, another word with a different meaning. For example, the letter “a” has the homonym “eh”. What’s interesting about “eh” is that it does not contain the letter it sounds like. There’s no “a” in “eh”.
1: Pronounced the same, spelt differently.
Find another five letters in English that have homonyms that do not contain the letter they sound like. (One of the words may be a tad obscure, unless you know some Caribbean geography. Or like crossword puzzles.) These five letters (excluding “a”) spell a common word. What is it?
2. Spelt the same, pronounced differently.
Find the homonyms below. Each pair of meanings describes a word that is spelt the same but pronounced differently. The words are listed in alphabetical order.
- (Second option)
- (Switch back and forth)
- (Suitable)
- (Commandeer)
- (Satisfied)
- (Components)
- (Conference attendee)
- (Assign)
- (Price reduction)
- (Disregard)
- (Way in)
- (Enrapture)
- (Incorrect)
- (Disabled)
- (60 seconds)
- (Tiny)
- (In attendance)
- (Give)
- (Fruit and vegetables)
- (Generate)
- (Deny)
- (Rubbish)
- (Distress)
- (Surprise victory)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK with the answers. PLEASE NO SPOILERS. Instead, please share your favourite homonyms.
Sources: 1 Gerry Reynolds 2 Ryan McCormack. I’ve been setting a puzzle here on alternate Mondays since 2015. I’m always on the look-out for great puzzles. If you would like to suggest one, email me.
Explore more on these topics: Mathematics, Alex Bellos's Monday puzzle, Linguistics
