You’d think that if you were to shout out a single, isolated word in English, any English speaker would know what you were talking about, right? Wrong. Think about it. Say can (tin), sow, bear, fair, I, see, weak, ate, dear, high, knot, steel, or tents. Now, how can you be sure your listeners understood exactly what you meant and not can (verb), sew, bare, fare, eye, sea, week, eight, deer, hi, not, steal, or tense? You can't. Unless you give some context for each word, the choice is ambiguous.
These examples above are homophones, a subcategory of homonyms. They are words that are pronounced identically but do not have the same meaning. Sometimes pairs of homophones are even spelt the same like can (tin)/can (verb) and fan (supporter)/fan (instrument that moves air to cool you down). And sometimes homophones are spelt differently like to/two/too.
Dictations are great in that they don’t run the risk of ambiguity because the words are in context, and the listener who is writing down what’s being dictated applies knowledge of context and grammar to decide on what words should be written. To make my point clearer, compare these:
- High John. Eye can sea ewe eight to many chocolates this mourning. You’re stomach must bee in nots!
- Hi John. I can see you ate too many chocolates this morning. Your stomach must be in knots!
And take a look at these two:
- Two day the dear past the damn, stared at the blazing hot son, and went behind the tense.
- Today the deer passed the dam, stared at the blazing hot sun, and went behind the tents.
Do you get the point?
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