I have a pretty good visual memory… for reading. In fact, not only can I tell you what I read, I can tell you where on the page it was. And the shapes of the letters line up in my brain and make sense to me. So much sense that I was the state spelling champion. Five times.
My little sister is dyslexic, and once spelled “that” with a W and no vowels.
No matter which of us you resemble more, this month’s technique is going to be interesting. We’re talking about words that are the same – or almost the same – and how to re-use them in your poetry in different ways. Instead of a whole bunch of examples, we’ll open with a list of the different kinds of similar words. You don’t have to memorize these, but it’s nice to be able to name what’s going on in a poem. It makes you sound smart, but more importantly, it ensures that you’re on the same page. Paging all editors: this goes for you, too. If you can’t tell the writer what they’ve done, you’re going to have a hard time helping them do it better.
Do you see what I did in those last two sentences? I used “page” twice, back to back, with completely different meanings. Let’s look at how that can happen in writing.
Capitonym
A capitonym is a word that changes its meaning (and often its pronunciation) if it’s capitalized. For example: The Polish bootblack polished my shoes. Are you going to the march in March? When I visited my cousin in Mobile, Alabama, they’d just installed a new mobile in the baby’s room. Remember: the only “spelling” difference is that capitalization, and the pronuncation doesn’t have to change! I ate a delicious turkey dinner in Turkey.
Heteronym
Two words that have a different meaning and pronunciation but the same spelling. For example: Don’t desert your post in the desert. A tear came to my eye when I saw the tear in my new slacks.
A caution: Heteronyms must have different pronunciations. For example, tear (crying) and tear (hole in clothing) are heteronyms, but tear (hole in clothing) and tear (on a tear, engaging in a burst of activity) are not, because they’re pronounced the same. We’ll get to those in a second.
A second caution (or maybe it’s just a fun fact): Heteronym is also the name for when a thing is called different things by different communities, like the long sandwich which may be called a hoagie, sub, or grinder, depending on where you are. In that example, hoagie, sub, and grinder are heteronyms. Confusing? Yeah, this is like bimonthly. Does it mean twice a month or every two months? WHO KNOWS.
Homonym
A word that has the same spelling and pronunciation as a word with a different meaning. For example: I can’t read the address on that letter; to whom did you address it? The bride’s stylist is here, but do you know who’s going to groom the groom? Look, I play clarinet; pianissimo I can do but forte ain’t my forte.
As you can see, some homonyms also have heteronyms. But don’t be fooled: homonyms are exactly the same in every aspect but meaning.
Homograph
This is the broader category that encompasses both heteronyms and homonyms. That is, a homograph (Greek for same+writing) is any word that’s spelled exactly the same as another word with a different meaning, whether or not it is pronounced the same.
Homophone
These are words that sound but aren’t necessarily spelled like another word with a different meaning. Their, they’re and there are homophones. Homophones are why it’s hard to tell which witch is which, and to explain that you can’t hear over here. It’s our hour, spelling bee champs!
Of course, regional differences in pronunciation can affect what’s a homophone. So be careful! Is aunt pronounced like ant where you live?
(To make things more confusing, all homonyms are also homophones, but not all homophones are homonyms.)
Polyseme
Polysemes are words with the same spelling and pronunciation (so they’re also homonyms and homophones) but a different similar meaning. For example, both you and a cave have a mouth. Needles and storms have holes in the center called eyes.
There are a lot of subsets and types of polysemous words. In fact, way too many for this little explanation, so I’ll refer you to wikipedia if you like going down that type of linguistic rabbit hole. The easy way to tell if two words are polysemes or just homonyms is to look them up in the dictionary. Usually if they’re under the same subheading, they’re polysemes; if they’re under different subheadings, they’re homonyms. Look up get to see how that plays out.
So what does this mean for me?
This month’s slam is to use at least one of the word types above in a poem.
Sounds easy, right? It is. You just need a word that sounds the same, but isn’t necessarily spelled the same, and has at least two different meanings in use in the poem. So how do you make this a challenge for yourself? Here are a few suggestions:
- Make every word pair on succeeding lines. That is, start your poem with one word from pair A in the first line. Then put another word from pair A and the first word from pair B in the next line. The line after that should have the second word from pair B and the first word from pair C, and so forth.
- Write a poem in couplets; each couplet must use a different pair of words, one on each line.
- Write a tritina, using as many different definitions of your terminal words as you can. Since you only get three words, try to pick ones with a lot of options!
- Write a sonnet (any kind of sonnet) using one of the word types to set up your tornada.
There are a ton of options for using these word pairs (trios… sets… whatever) in your work. The only requirement for this month is that you use at least two pairs, so that we can find them!
Good luck, and happy writing!
About the author:
Rowan submitted exactly one piece of microfiction to YeahWrite before being consumed by the editorial darkside. She spent some time working hard as our Submissions Editor before becoming YeahWrite’s Managing Editor in 2016. She was a BlogHer Voice of the Year in 2017 for her work on intersectional feminism, but she suggests you find and follow WOC instead. In real life she’s been at various times an attorney, aerialist, professional knitter, artist, graphic designer (yes, they’re different things), editor, secretary, tailor, and martial artist. It bothers her vaguely that the preceding list isn’t alphabetized, but the Oxford comma makes up for it. She lives in Portlandia with a menagerie which includes at least one other human. She tells lies at textwall and uncomfortable truths at CrossKnit.
