By Judge Phil Ginn for THE DAILY SIGNAL
It seems that the English language is somewhat difficult to learn for those who don’t apprehend it as their native tongue. One of the reasons: English has significant built-in complexities that tend to cause a great deal of confusion.
At the risk of creating an additional brushfire in the realm of political correctness, consider the use of homophones, one of the odder characteristics of English. Before you get your feathers ruffled, this phenomenon has nothing to do with sexual preferences or even the devilish cellphone.
The concept of homophones entails two or more words with the same pronunciation but different meanings, origins, or spellings. Not only are these words difficult for beginners, but they also can cause great consternation even for those who have spoken English for their entire lifetime.
Consider, if you will, words such as flower and flour, plain and plane, male and mail, pray and prey, and so forth. There is little wonder that the myriad examples of this oddity of speech often confound even language scholars.
One of the more interesting examples of homophones came to mind just the other day while I was reading a news article from the Daily Caller related to a new Florida law allowing volunteer chaplains to be placed into the statewide school system.
