I recently read a book that was a good story that I enjoyed and felt that, generally, it was well-edited, except for one thing: There were a handful of instances of using the wrong homonym. These are usage errors as well as technically a spelling error. Alert readers will notice and roll their eyes, not a reaction you usually want directed toward your work.

Bear and bare are often misused! My first thought is that bear is the animal and bare is a synonym for naked. So far so good. But what about to bear arms, meaning wielding a weapon, versus bare arms, like in a sleeveless dress?

I dare you to look up bear in the dictionary. What about to bear a child? What about its past participle, born? Then there’s bearing. How many different definitions does that have, from bearing a burden to the component in your car?

Then there’s another slant on bare, being the adverb barely.

There are dozens of homonyms in the English language just waiting to trip you up. I’ve harped on this before and will continue to do so as long as I find them, especially in otherwise well-written books. These nasty alligators in the water aren’t caught by your garden variety spellchecker, so it’s up to you as an author to distinguish between them and use them correctly.

I can barely bear it when people misuse homonyms!