The wikipedia article for homonyms does a nice job of explaining the distinction between the terms homonym, homograph, heteronym, and homophone (even tossing in a nice introduction to polysemes). The cartesian diagram depicting their qualities in four quadrants according to similarities in spelling and is particularly helpful, but there is a suspicious blank spot. What term goes in the fourth quadrant of the wikipedia homonym diagram? Is there a term that specifically describes a set of words that have different spellings, different pronunciations, and different meanings? [more inside]
posted by mumblelard on Feb 26, 2009 - 31 answers

Why do people misspell 'lose' as 'loose'? I was looking at this old entry at waxy. All the info on the web seems to be of the 'haha, look how stupid people are' variety but I haven't found anything that tries to explain these mistakes away. Is it phonetics, usage, words that are an exception to a rule?
posted by vacapinta on Dec 30, 2003 - 19 answers