Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Homophones - Inspired by The Phantom Tollbooth

Homophone: each of two or more words having the same pronunciation but different meanings, origins, or spelling, e.g., new and knew.

If you've ever had the pleasure of reading The Phantom Tollbooth, you may remember the huge amount of word play and silliness with language. Puns galore! There are also quite a few examples of homophones, as a way for the author to make a clever little joke. For example, early on our young hero Milo meets a whether man. This man doesn't tell you the temperature or current conditions, but asks you whether you want this thing or that. A little later he meets an old woman named Faintly Macabre. She is a not-so-wicked Which. A Which is in charge of choosing which words were to be used for all occasions.

We spent some time thinking of other homophones, and I had some already listed on the board. Children were asked to use a pair of these words, use each word in a sentence, and illustrate their meaning. It was a fun exercise. Here is one example (and, of course, we could have added SENT to this).








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