CONFUSION ALL AROUND

Whether you are talking about homographs (bear(noun)/bear(verb)) or homophones (which adds bare (adjective/verb to the list), the result is the same: homonym confusion. When I was a child we were taught only the word homonym, but that was enough to worry any poor speller. For a non-native English speaker, it must be a nightmare.

Consider the examples above. Bear, spelled b-e-a-r, has two meanings. One is the name of an animal and therefore a noun. The other is a verb suggesting that effort or endurance is required to deal with events. You could say they are linked, I suppose. When in the wilderness you have to bear (verb) with the threat of a bear (animal) rooting through your trash or stealing your food.

Bare, on the other hand, is both adjective and verb. The “bare truth” is truth that is not cloaked in unclear speech or writing. To bare is to uncover, whether this is by physically removing whatever hides what you are looking at like removing clothing to reveal naked skin, or by removing the obscurity that surrounds a fact.

Three similar words are resent/resent and recent. The first can mean something was sent again or re-sent and is pronounced with a soft S like a hiss. The second resent is also a verb meaning to feel bitterness or indignation. Though visually the same as the first word, it is pronounced with a hard S (z sound). The final word sounds like the first because the C is pronounced like a soft S, but the stress is on the first syllable RE unlike the stress in the other two where the accent is on SENT. Recent means near to present time and is an adjective. If there are any geologists out there, it is also a term equal to “Holocene”, a noun.

Today I have only written about two basic sounds, “bare” and “resent”, yet look at the convoluted results. No wonder people say English is hard to learn. Even native speakers have trouble with words like these.

#EnglishLanguage #ESL