For this year’s Blogging from A to Z in April Challenge I am writing about words. I hope my posts will interest readers, who are fascinated by words as I am. A few years ago I began to compile a list of homophones. I’m not the only person, who has done this – other lists of homophones are available online. I haven’t found homophones beginning with every letter of the alphabet, so for some letters I am only including anagrams.

Homophones are words, which are spelled differently, but sound the same.

(More details in my theme reveal.)

When I prepared this post I hadn’t found any homophones beginning with X!*

Whether different words sound exactly the same depends on the speaker’s diction. People in Scotland roll their Rs, thus distinguishing between many words, which are homophones for people from the South of England in particular. Lazy speech makes more homophones!

When I collected my list of homophones, I did not consult a dictionary. Listening to the radio, or to people talking, (or while doing cryptic crosswords) I took note of words and phrases, which sounded the same.

I enjoy words games and puzzles of most kinds. Reading dictionaries has been a pastime of  mine from childhood onwards. Growing up in a home without a television meant that I had more time to read than many of my contemporaries had.

For this challenge I have checked that the words and spellings which I have included are accurate. I have left my readers the challenge (should you wish) of finding out the meanings of all the words.

In some of the posts the same spelling appears twice alongside a different word. This is because the word has a different sound depending on context. For example, the past tense of read is pronounced red, while the present tense is pronounced reed.

If English is not your first language, you may be finding these posts rather daunting. Be encouraged by the following joke:-

A poster outside a cinema many years ago announced, ‘Oliver – pronounced success’.

Homophones are useful in jokes and puns. For example, the sentences included in my post for the Letter W are from an old Yorkshire (Northern England) joke.

It goes like this:-

A new teacher from the south of England asked a child in her class, ‘Where’s the bin?’

The child replied, ‘’ome for me lunch.’

Dialect makes communication more difficult, but adds to the richness of our linguistic heritage.

*A possible homophone for X: xenon/ Zen on. What do you think? Are there any more?

Anagram corner: OK. I admit it. I had to consult a dictionary to find an anagram of words beginning with X. They are obscure. XANTHEIN and XANTHINE are anagrams. (Thank you, Collins Scrabble™ Dictionary!)