"Sound-alike" Words

Many words sound alike and are similar in spelling but have very different mean­ings. Although it may be somewhat humorous to read that a survey is "chalk full" of information (instead of "chock-full"), a company's management team is doing some "sole" searching (instead of "soul searching"), or an employee was in a "comma" (in­stead of a "coma") after a car accident, such mistakes are the mark of a careless writer.

A spell-checking program for your personal computer is extremely efficient at catching misspelled words but often can't catch homonyms because they are correctly spelled words. It is therefore important always to proofread your copy even after it has been corrected by a spell-checker program.

Here is a list of words that are frequently confused:

adapt, adopt incredible, incredulous

appraise, apprise negligent, negligible

canvas, canvass peak, peek

comprise, compose pore, pour

continual, continuous principal, principle

ensure, insure rebut, refute

fortunate, fortuitous shoe, shoo

imply, infer stationary, stationery

This list is far from complete. There are many other words that sound alike or almost alike but have different spellings and meanings.