Saturday, July 07, 2007

Pseudo-homonym Ho-down

Sometimes, people write things like "I might kill over." Then, you spend a few minutes thinking about things that could mean...
They might kill over someone breaking into their home? They might kill over an affair (and try to use the heat of passion defense)? They might kill over someone borrowing their shoes with no permission? You find it bizarre and a little creepy. Then, after a few minutes, you realize they mean "keel," not kill, and feel a little better. A lesson to prevent this in the future:

to keel over is to fall as in faint, or to capsize or turn over.

to kill is to cause death or commit murder.

They sound similar, and in a world where people sometimes write "Lake Pal" instead of Lake Powell, I can understand the mix up. So, fainting okay, killing not.

1 comment:

Nikki said...

Big time pet peeve! I can't stand to hear "dill" when they mean to say "deal". But speaking of actual homonyms, I won a contest in fourth or fifth grade for compiling a list of the most homonyms. I had more than a hundred if I am remembering correctly. And "acrossed" is not a word.