In the past, I’ve been known to apologize to Susan Marcus, who reads these columns out loud for Vision Resources of Central PA.
There was the time I used a late medieval Hebrew term without providing any guidance on pronunciation. Susan was forced to guess how to say it — and, with the luck of the well prepared, she guessed right.
Happily, that was just one word. When I wrote a piece that included an utterly brutal tongue-twister — in French — at least I had the common decency to spell it out phonetically for her.
Although I doubt the phonetic spelling made reading it much easier.
But this column is going to be a doozy. It’s another one on homophones, those pesky words that sound the same, but are spelled differently.
Take today’s title. Read out loud, it sounds perfectly normal: “This does not need to be painful.”
But because I’ve broken it down into words with alternate spellings — “knead” for “need;” “two” for “to;” etc. — a reader sees something quite different on the page from what she hears in her mind. Thus the momentary bemusement, giving rise either to irritation, or an ironic smile, or both.
So for anyone listening to this column, you have my apologies. It will all sound perfectly normal. You’ll have to take my word that it looks quite strange on the page.
Here’s a charming note I received from a reader of my recent column on homophones, homophobia, and proofreading. Actually, the note came from three readers, Amanda, Amy, and Scott Kresge, who teamed up to write it and kindly gave me permission to reproduce it in its entirety. I’ve taken the liberty of putting the homonyms in boldface:
Deere Matte,
The title of your May 22nd editorial really peeked hour interest. Reading threw the article was a delight. Oui agree with your sentiments concerning the use of the write homophone and the retched decline of editting [sic] in the press. We believe only the purist form of English, true to the basic tenants of grammar, should be published. A pear of words having identical sounds is no excuse for errors. We have only feint respect for publications that routinely permit this mien grammar. Such righting greats on our ayes and causes a visceral pane.
Unfortunately, errors and pore proofing have become increasingly common in sum of our trade magazines. We once responded to a wail of an error, butt that cant correct the wrest. There is not enough thyme in the day to reed every written word to insure correctness. Sew many words have duel spellings and meanings and so few people seam to care. We hope your editorial leads to titer proof-reading and moor oversight across the bored. If not, at least we were amused, witch is no mean feet.
Morning the adoption of the “normative” principal,
Amanda, Amy, and Scott Kresge
My hat’s off to the Kresges, who managed to slip thirty-five homonyms into three perfectly normal paragraphs. (I’m giving them credit for the substitution of “Oui,” the French word meaning “yes,” for “We,” even thought the use of a foreign word as a homophone isn’t strictly kosher. I think they deserve a little leeway. Don’t you?)
When I first opened the email from the Kresges, I was reminded of the day in my tenth grade English class when we cracked Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and read the opening lines of the Prologue in Middle English:
[Sorry, Susan!]
Whan that Aprille, with hise shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath Perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour.
Of which vertue engendred is the flour…
It looked so strange on the page! But when our teacher read it out loud, certain words snapped into focus. “Shoures” was “showers;” “droghte” was “drought;” “veyne” was “vein;” “flour” was “flower.”
What at first looked like a completely different language wasn’t so alien after all. It was like listening to an elderly relative with a thick foreign accent — which isn’t a bad way to describe the relationship between Middle English and modern English.
Here’s what Chaucer was saying, rendered in words — and spelling — that’s a bit more accessible, albeit minus the poetry:
When April, with its sweet showers
Has pierced the drought of March to its very roots,
And bathed every tendril in the sweet liquor
That causes flowers to burst forth…
I find it comforting to be able to decipher — incompletely, yes; and with great effort — a poem written in the late 1300s. Change comes slowly to the English language, a great sprawling mongrel of a tongue if ever there was one. But change is inevitable. Homophones are a reminder that the written word, with its normative spelling, lags far behind the spoken.
Here’s hoping that a reader 600 years from now will be able to decipher these words. To my future reader: sorry about the spelling! Try reading this piece out loud, just like Susan Marcus did in 2014. You might catch more of it that way.
Remember: Twenty-first century American English does not need to be painful.
