The amusing homophony of English

our blog

19 January 2022

Amusing to tears

In English, due to its twisted spelling, it is not always possible to exactly identify the word pronounced. What is meant by [raɪt]—right, rite, wright, write? Pronounced similarly and written differently, these words are called homophones.

Lots of jokes are based on homophony. For instance, May 4 is celebrated as the so-called Star Wars Day because the catchphrase of this saga May the Force be with you can be also spelled as May the fourth be with you (May the fourth, May 4).

Another homophonic joke—Eye Halve a Spelling Chequer. The words in this poem are written as gibberish, but they suddenly turn into meaningful text once you start pronouncing them without thinking. The first strophe:

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

Another linguistic joke on a similar topic, on irregular stresses in English—the De Chaos poem.

How to translate TXLF Wordfast files in Trados Studio

Trados Studio can be used to translate .txlf Wordfast files If you do not have or do not like or do not work in Wordfast, you can translate its files in Trados Studio. Trados Studio knows well how to process different file types (Word, Excel, HTML and many, many others). To teach your Trados Studio to work with TXLF Wordfast files means to […]

Knowledge Hub

How to get rid of the “Failed to load built-in plugin(s)” error in Xliff Editor

Unfortunately, errors happen in every program We have caught a new error, this time in Xliff Editor, a text editor included in the Translation Workspace software package. Here’s what it looks like: Failed to load built-in plugin(s): Failed to activate the plugin: … reason : … * * * The error happens due to the wrong configuration of […]

Knowledge Hub

Haiti not Tahiti, Dominicana not Dominica

Linguogeographic notes The country of Haiti occupies a third of the island of Hispaniola, once called Hayti and still called so in many languages, other than Romano-Germanic, due to the confusion of their speakers. The remaining two-thirds is occupied by the Dominican Republic, sometimes also called Dominicana. A highly puzzling region. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and the only […]

Knowledge Hub

Cherokee writing system: familiar but weird

About using symbols A Native American chief named Sequoyah, also known to the world as George Guess, knew no English but often saw European settlers writing in it. His native language was Cherokee, which at that time (the early 19th century) did not yet have an alphabet. Realizing that sounds could be represented by signs and […]

Knowledge Hub

A bear’s service to aspiring translators

That infamous awkward moment On an annoyingly regular basis, we find ourselves in the same situation: some John Smith says, “Hey, I know you do translations professionally, and my daughter (sister, niece) just happens to have graduated with a linguistics degree and is now looking for a job. She speaks English (German, French) so great! […]

Knowledge Hub