Commonly Confused Words

Partly due to the rich ethnic heritage of the language, there are many words in English that are confused with other words. We have words that sound the same but have different meanings such as fair, fare, and fair.

I recently attended the State Fair [event] of Texas, where the fare [cost] to ride the Ferris wheel seemed quite fair [just or reasonable], considering the stunning views of Dallas at night from the tallest Ferris wheel in the Western Hemisphere.

In this sentence, all three are homonymns (same pronunciation but different meanings). Fare is also a homophone of the other two (same pronunciation, different meaning and spelling).

Adding to the confusion potential, English also has words that are spelled the same but have different meanings.

The beautiful sight of the Dallas skyline from the 212.5-foot tall Texas Star brought a tear [fluid secreted by the lacrimal gland] to my eye. I wanted take a picture of it, but found I had a tear [rip] in my bag and my camera was missing. After the twelve-minute ride, I went on a tear [colloquial: to become frantic, to do something maniacly] to find my missing camera, which was at the bottom of my bag all along.

Tear, tear, and tear are examples of homographs, words that have the same spelling but different meanings. The first instance also is a heteronymn of the other two (same spelling, different meanings and pronunciations).

We also have words that come from the same root but, nonetheless, have different spellings in English for different meanings (or in different contexts). English also has words that are from different roots but that have similar meanings. Another common problem is words that sound similar, but have different meanings. All of these add to the potential for confusion in understanding, writing, and speaking the English language.

I will look at some of these commonly-confused words in a series of posts, beginning here with the last category: words that sound similar, but have different meanings. Let's look first at accept and except.

Accept vs. Except

To accept (verb) is to welcome, receive willingly, bear, tolerate, hold as true, or agree with. [1]
To except (verb) is to exclude, to object, or to take exception to. [2]
Except as a verb is not used as often as the noun form, exception. [3]
Except also is a conjunction meaning “but not.” [4]
Except also can be a preposition meaning "other than." [5]

Usage Examples

The professor accepted the student’s alternative answer to the question. [1]
The university accepts 2000 new students each year. [1]
The student accepted his grade on the test. [2]
The professor excepted the lowest grade before calculating the average. This exception raised the class average by five points. [3]
Everyone except the Dean spoke at the meeting. This exception raised the class average by a few points. [4]
Except for the Dean, everyone spoke at the meeting. [5]

Next time

We will look at another troublesome pair: affect and effect.