Parts of the English language, like homophones, can be funny things. The fact is that there are many words in the English language that just don’t seem to follow the regular rules of spelling.

Homophones – words pronounced alike but with different spellings and different meanings – are some of the most troublesome words when learning how to spell. (These words are also frequently called homonyms.)

When you think about homophones, you generally think about the most common ones. “They’re,” “their,” and “there,” for example, come to mind at the top of the list. Other homophones that you’re likely to use on a daily basis, such as “to,” “too,” and “two” are ones you’re going to think of right away.

But while there are a handful of homophones that occur at a high frequency, there are literally thousands of homophones in the English language. Some interesting ones include “gneiss” and “nice” and “gorilla” and “guerilla.”

Just how many homophones are there? According to the third edition of Homophones and Homographs: An American Dictionary by James B. Hobbs, there are over 7,700 homophones in the English language.

Hobbs also notes that as language continues to develop and change, the number of homophones increases as well. The first edition of Hobbs’ book listed just 3,625 homophones, a little less than half of the number contained in the fourth edition.

Hobbs isn’t done his work, either. In the preface to the fourth edition of Homophones and Homographs, Hobbs goes as far as to suggest that once his search for homophones is complete, he will reach somewhere between 8,000 and 10,000 homophones.

In fact, Hobbs even offers a reward of $1.00 for each homophone that doesn’t appear in the book. (I found four!)

Most students are naturally attracted to homophones, and it can be an interesting activity to start a list of homophone sets. See how many words your students can come up with over the course of the year! This can even develop into a friendly spirited competition between classrooms – see which class can come up with the most sets of homophones. The All About Homophones book includes forms you can photocopy for this purpose.

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Marie Rippel is the author of All About Homophones: Your Complete Tool Kit.