Oronyms and Homophones

prince and prints

Oronyms (or homophones) are words which sound the same. Generally the word homophone is used to describe a pair of words that have the same sound (like prince and prints; allowed and aloud), while oronyms are normally phrases such as iced ink and I stink.

When speaking, it is impossible to tell where one word ends and the next begins. The seamlessness of speech is... apparent in "oronyms," strings of sound that can be made into words in two different ways:

~~The good can decay many ways.The good candy came anyways.

~~The stuffy nose can lead to problems.The stuff he knows can lead to problems.

~~Some others I've seen.Some mothers I've seen.

Some have been discovered inadvertently by teachers reading their students' term papers and homework assignments:

~~Jose can you see by the donzerly light?[Oh say can you see by the dawn's early light?]

~~It's a doggy-dog world.[It's a dog-eat-dog world.]

~~Eugene O'Neill won a Pullet Surprise.[Eugene O'Neill won a Pulitzer Prize.]

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Here are some more phrases that sound the same:

~~A politician's fate often hangs in a [delicate / delegate] balance.

~~Any [grey day / grade A] would be bad news for one professor I know.

~~I don't know how [mature / much your] people enjoy such a show.

~~I have [known oceans / no notions] that you yourself couldn't imagine.

~~If you listen you can hear the [night rain / night train].

~~I'm taking [a nice / an ice] cold shower.

~~Reading in the library is sometimes [allowed / aloud].

~~That's the [biggest hurdle / biggest turtle] I've ever seen!

~~[White shoes: / Why choose] the trademark of Pat Boone?

~~You'd be surprised to see a [mint spy / mince pie] in your bank.

Here is a well-known poem that written almost entirely with homophones~

Eye Halve A Spelling Chequer

(I Have a Spelling Checker)

Eye halve a spelling chequer

It came with my pea sea

It plainly marques four my revue

Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word

And weight four it two say

Weather eye am wrong oar write

It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid

It nose bee fore two long

And eye can put the error rite

Its rarely ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it

I am shore your pleased two no

Its letter perfect in it's weigh

My chequer tolled me sew.

(Sauce unknown)

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There have been a few times I wish spell-check

could catch those kind of errors! LOL!

If you want to have more fun with words, click

on my "word games" label at the end of this post!

Pictures from google, info from funwithwords.com