Clever Illustrations Of “Same” Words That People Confuse Way Too Often

What happens when a frog’s car breaks down? It gets toad away. If you laughed at this joke more than you probably should have, you know that words are fun. Bruce Worden, the man behind a blog called Homophones Weakly, also shares this opinion. Like you might have already guessed, he’s into homophones (each of two or more words having the same pronunciation but different meanings, origins, or spelling). In fact, Bruce likes them so much, he’s even visualizing them. Scroll down for some of the best examples!

Easily confused words.

Easily confused words.

Easily confused words.

Easily confused words.

Easily confused words.

Easily confused words.

Easily confused words.

Easily confused words.

Easily confused words.

Easily confused words.

Easily confused words.

Easily confused words.

Easily confused words.

Easily confused words.

Easily confused words.

Easily confused words.

Easily confused words.

Easily confused words.

Easily confused words.

Easily confused words.

Easily confused words.

40 thoughts on “Clever Illustrations Of “Same” Words That People Confuse Way Too Often”

  1. Obviously not done by someone with English as a first language.
    Americans use a perverse form that is almost unrecognisable as English.

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  2. I’m a native English speaker. A lot of those aren’t homophones for me. These sound nothing like each other:

    – exercise, exorcise
    – whine, wine
    – hole, whole
    – which, witch
    – colonel, kernel
    – gorilla, guerilla
    – parish, perish
    – fairy, ferry

    No, of course I don’t have an accent. Everyone else does.

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  3. It’s the confused phrases that I see more often, mostly in emails at work:
    “Should of” instead of “should have”
    “Seen as” instead of “seeing as”
    And the one that makes me laugh as I imagine the sender striking a dramatic pose – “As a pose to” instead of “as opposed to”

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  4. I love these! But why is the peeing man peeing dramatically upwards? There is only one circumstance in which that would happenand I fail to see the relevance.

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  5. These should be flash cards for school kids. Or permanent bulletin board displays. I wonder if those who speak other languages screw up usage as much as we do?

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  6. I see many Am/Br natives confusing “hair/her/heir/here”, “their/they’re/there”, “ship/sheep/chip/cheap”, “leave/live”, “your/you’re”, “though/tough/thought”, “bit/bite/beet/beat”, even “sun/son”… I’m Portuguese, by the way ;)

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  7. I don’t see why a priest needs a lab flask for an exorcism, though. I suppose it’s scientific holy water?

  8. All a bit of fun until the author has no idea which witch is the right witch, which should have the right rites.

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  9. To the “real” English-speakers bitching and moaning in the comments: first of all, you DO realise that English is a bastard language, right? Secondly, considering you represent a group which somehow pronounces “lieutenant” as “LEFTtenant” and “colonel” as “KERnel”, I hardly think any of you dolts are in a position to complain about someone else’s pronunciation.

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  10. It’s not the pronunciation that’s the problem. The whole problem must be possible to be remedied by schooling. How come a lot of those who learnt English as a second language get it right when native English speakers don’t. May be British schools should adopt the way other countries teach their children.

  11. I’m a witch that has an inordinate amount of trouble to spell which… Every frigging time. The word just does not compute. (even now I’m relying on the autosuggestion not to fail me…)

  12. Absolutely love making fun of English. A language which uses a more amazing variance of letters with a total lack of variance in sound… Worcestershire sauce comes to mind… Colonel… in other languages we just say what we write… write.. right?

  13. How about Blew, Blue, Sale, Sail, Right, Write, Pique, Peek, Peak, Pour, Pore, Sight, Site, Sew, So, Sow, Bite, Byte.

  14. Air/Heir, fare/fair, stare/stair, dire/dyer, dye/die, hi/high, hire/higher, rain/reign, herd/heard, due/dew, meet/meat, it’s/its…I’m sure there are thousands more

  15. How does this help people know the difference between ‘bear with me’ and ‘bare with me’? Or to spell the exclamation ‘hear hear!’ (‘here here’?) correctly?

  16. Previous poster said “English is a bastard language”. As an born English speaker who learned and spoke another Latin language for years, english IS a bastard language. English is a mess compared to the structure and organization you find with Latin languages. Any snooty comments regarding it as refined is obviously uninformed and ignorant.

  17. This was a good list. I agree with most other peoples comments. The English language is getting butchered because words are not being used in the correct context.

    A prime example I see a lot is when people are trying to say you’re and using your. Please stop!

  18. Hear’s some words for yuo: VOTE FUOR ME Eber Flamenco for yuor next preseiedent 2021 of teh UNITED STATS

    I have teh goal to make it to the straite shot to teh top! I have a dream,,,too… I get on teh bus an i seee Bronco Bama, teh Kennadies, Whitney Hooston, all teh biggest celebraties of teh 90s,,,teh weird kinda Asian looking kid from Home Improvemant too. He going to be my secetrary of State. Or Diplomat to Asians.Alslo whatever hapened two Mister Cooper? lol that was a goode show

  19. Eber Flamenco February 2, 2021
    Hear’s some words for yuo: VOTE FUOR ME Eber Flamenco for yuor next preseiedent 2021 of teh UNITED STATS

    I have teh goal to make it to the straite shot to teh top! I have a dream,,,too… I get on teh bus an i seee Bronco Bama, teh Kennadies, Whitney Hooston, all teh biggest celebraties of teh 90s,,,teh weird kinda Asian looking kid from Home Improvemant too. He going to be my secetrary of State. Or Diplomat to Asians.Alslo whatever hapened two Mister Cooper? lol that was a goode show

    Leave Name blank to comment as Anonymous.

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