Weekly English Words with Alisha Heteronyms
Hi, I’m Alisha. Welcome back to Weekly Words. This week I’m told, uh, might be something
that’s going to be scary for me. What is…
What? Heteronyms? This is gonna be bad. The
word “heteronyms” means “two separate
words with the same spelling but with different
pronunciation and meaning.” Really? Okay, now that I understand, it’s not so scary.
Let’s start.
Okay, the first word is “bass,” as in
a type of fish or “base (bayse),” which
refers to someone’s voice. It’s also a type
instrument. It kind of looks like a guitar.
There’s also a string bass that’s
usually a really tall instrument, um, that
you play standing up. So in a sentence, when you’re fishing, you might say, “Oh, hey,
I hope I catch a bass today.” If you’re
a musically inclined person, you might say,
“My favorite instrument is the “bass (bayse).” Great. Those are pretty good.
Uh, next is “wind,” as in the air, uh,
“blowing, blowing air,” and “wind (waind),”
as in like “to wrap something around something else.” “Wind, you might say, “The wind
is really strong today. I should’ve brought
my kite to the park.” Okay, I don’t know.
Every once in a while, these oddly specific
sentences. “Wind?” Like, maybe you have
a ball of string at your house,
and it’s gotten all tangled up. It’s really,
really messy, and, uh, you find it one day,
and you think to yourself, “Oh, I really
need to wind this ball of string into a clean, like, tidy ball.”
Next, uh, “tear (tayr).” “A rip in something.” Um, like you might “tear (tayr)” a piece
of paper in half. The same spelling, um, can also make, uh, the word “tear,” which
is that drop of water that comes out of a
person’s eye when they’re sad or sometimes
when they’re very happy. Use them both in
one sentence? “Whenever I tear (tayr) a
piece of paper, a tear comes from my eye because I feel bad for ruining trees.” Or, “My,
my friend made me tear (tayr) up my favorite love letter, and I shed many tears as a result.”
That one was slightly better. Alright.
Next is “dove (duv).” “Dove (duv)”
can be a bird, it’s a white bird, often represents
peace, and it can also, uh, be pronounced
“dove (dohv),” which is the past tense
of the verb “to dive.” So you might say,
“The dove dove (dohv) into…” What does
a dove dive into? “The dove (duv) dove (dohv) into oncoming traffic.” “The dove (duv)
dove (dohv) into the pond to take a bath.”
Next is “close,” meaning “to be near,”
and the other pronunciation is “close (clohz),”
meaning “to shut,” or it can also mean
“to end.” So in a sentence, let’s see
if we can use them both in the same sentence. Um, “Please close (clohz) the door that
is close to you, um, because the show is coming to a close (clohz).” Oh, yeah!
End! That was all of ‘em. That was an interesting lesson. I hope that you guys learned something.
If nothing else, I think it’s a good reminder
that pronunciation is important. When you
put emphasis on one part of the word, it might actually change the meaning of the word
entirely, so please be careful, especially
with some of the words that we talked about
here today. Okay, thanks for joining us, and I will see you again next week. Bye-bye!