Grammar Girl here. I'm In Yon Fogarty, and today we're talking about words that are spelled the same, but sound different. And then we'll talk about some lost letters of the alphabet. This first segment is by Samantha Anselin. One of our listeners named Greg wrote in recently with a question.

He wanted to know if there's a term for words that change their definition when their syllable emphasis changes.

He mentioned the word invalid as an example. Now, according to Merriam-Webster, the word means being without foundation in fact or truth,

when you stress the second syllable as in invalid. But it means one who is sickly or disabled

when you stress the first syllable as in invalid. Good question, Greg. There is a term for words that are spelled the same,

but have different meanings. They're called homographs. The homo-route means same, and the graph root

means right. Greg pointed out some homographs are pronounced differently, like wind, the movement of air,

and wind to coil something like a string around another object.

Others are pronounced the same, like odd meaning strange, and odd meaning a number that can't

be divided evenly by two.

Wouldn't it be easier for everyone if we just had separate words

for totally separate concepts? Well, here's why we don't. Some homographs have different etymologies.

For example, the verb match comes from an old English word that means equal or mate, as in saying someone in love has

found their match. Whereas the noun match, the fire stick, comes from a Greek word that meant

lamp wick, mixa. And the word mixa, in turn, was originally mucus based on the notion of a wick dangling from the spout of a lamp

like snot from a nostril. I bet you never thought that etymology could be so disgusting.

Another example is the word compact. The noun compact, meaning an agreement, comes from the Latin verb

compochishi, meaning to covenant together. The past tense of this verb was compactum. In contrast,

the verb compact, meaning to press tightly together, comes from the Latin verb copangere, which had the same meaning.

And the past sense of that verb was compactus.

Even some words that seem similar can have different origins.

For example, think of the noun ear.

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