Eye halve a spelling checker…
…It came with my pea sea".
In this poem some words have been substituted by homophones - words with the same sound but different spelling. It proves that computer spelling checkers are not infallible!
Eye Halve a Spelling Chequer
Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a quay and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its really ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect in it's weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.
(Sauce unknown)
Correct English version
I have a spelling checker
It came with my PC
It plainly marks for my review
Mistakes I cannot see
I strike a key and type a word
And wait for it to say
Whether I am wrong or right
It shows me straight away
As soon as a mistake is made
It knows before too long
And I can put the error right
It’s rarely ever wrong
I have run this poem through it
I am sure you’re pleased to know
It’s letter perfect in its way
My checker told me so
(Source unknown)
Comments
Hi Adam! I'm commenting back to you after almost a year or so..While teaching my 10th class students the afore mentioned terms I got somewhat very confused in their meaning.Kindly explain to me at length the differences between these terms since they seem to be synonymous to each other.I would be very grateful.
team
Hello rasshid!
Welcome back! I understand your problem - the names are quite confusing. Take a look in our online dictionary first. This has good defintiions of the words.
To help you remember, look at the end of the words. -phone means sound, like in telephone. Homophones are words that sound the same, but have different meanings, e.g. know/no. -graph means writing, so a homograph is written the same, but may have a different meaning and/or sound, as in read(present tense)/read (past tense).
A homonym is a word with a different meaning that is either spelled or pronounced the same way - so both homographs and homophones are homonyms.
Hope that helps!
Jeremy Bee
The LearnEnglish Team
it is funny
thanks
Very funny poem, I do not understand where is the fun in this game though - some words sound same, we all know it and, seeing them one beside other, it is not really difficult task to put them together. Should we just guess them it would be some fun..
I don't see how is it for advanced learners.. There are no real exercises one so desperately needs. I passed all the exercises and games for 100%, but still can't pass thru school exam :-( - maybe should play less actually :-)
Love this site for very comprehensive grammar though.
team
Hello,
Thanks for your comment. I agree with you that the preparation task is not as difficult as the the rest of the page. I think the reason the page is marked as 'advanced' is that the poem requires includes some complex vocabulary that can't be guessed from context.
However, when we have some spare time, we'll try to add some more complex activities to this page.
In general, I agree with you that we need some more activities for advanced learners on the site. This is something we want to work on in the next year.
Best wishes,
Adam
The LearnEnglish Team
It's really handy as well as inspiring!
Many thanks!
In order that we improve our English , we should practise it.
what make a language difficult to understand is its daily use. We, not native speakers, can improve our English through stories and poems. Hoping you will have more such interesting sources for us to learn. Thanks U!
I really admire the author of the poem who have so big an imagination to produce such a great poem. I like it.
it is really cool , hats off to whosoever has made it ....rocking