M.E. Kinkade

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Homophobes Against Homophones: Why Words Matter

August 2, 2014 9:45 am

This is just ridiculous, but it shows, painfully clearly, why language and being educated about language, matters.

The social media specialist for a language school was fired for writing a blog post about homophones (words that sound the same but aren’t), because the owner presumed–or thought others would presume?–the post was about gay sex.

Seriously, I can’t believe this happened (here’s the original story). Take a second to let that soak in:

• School that focuses on language for non-native speakers
• Has blog post about a basic issue that non-native speakers encounter when learning language
• But the name for that issue is vaguely, distantly related to a different word
• Causing the owner–who had to look up the definition–to fire the blog writer.

The fire-er actually said, “People at this level of English may see the ‘homo’ side and think it has something to do with gay sex.”

Barney expresses my feelings quite well.

I mean, of course they would! It’s not like they have a language school they can attend where they can learn these things!

Oh…wait…

Just for our brilliant language school owner’s edification, some common homophones include:

• their, there, they’re
• threw, through, thru
• mourning, morning
• air, err, heir, are* (in some dialects)
• flee, flea
• flew, flu
• rain, reign, rein

Also, some other words that begin with “homo-” but have nothing at all to do with gay sex (plus definitions!):

• homogeneous: having the same structure, being composed of similar parts
• homologous: matching in structure
• homocysteine: an amino acid found in the blood of mammals and appears to be associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease
• homoiothermic: warm-blooded
• homocercal: relating to a fish fin, having upper and lower lobes that are approximately symmetrical
• Homo sapiens: mankind, human beings (that’s right sir, you are indeed Homo!)

This is just one of the many reasons learning the ins-and-outs of your language is so vital—so that you don’t make a fool of yourself on a national stage like this school-owner just did. I hope the blogger finds a new job swiftly; it will undoubtedly be an environment more open to actual learning!

Posted by Megan

Categories: writing

Tags: editing, english, homophones, language, writing

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One Response to “Homophobes Against Homophones: Why Words Matter”

1. It appears the owner of that school needs to attend a lesson on prefixes. (And what does this incident say about the schooling system if he managed to reach adulthood without ever learning about homophones?)

   By KokkieH on August 3, 2014 at 4:47 am

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