Homophone Help...Need Answer Fast!

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

My fourth grader has a homework assignment that he needed my help on. Naturally I am baffled. The assignment is to find the homophone pairs in a quote from famous people.

My understanding of homophones is that they are words that sound the same but are spelled differently. Words like sea/see, write/right, etc.

I cannot for the life of me find a single homophone in this boy's list of quotes. Maybe its a trick question?

Examples:

"Kids need to hear that if they put in the work, the results will be there."-Michael Jordan

"A lesson worth learning is that whatever your life's work, do it well."-Martin Luther King

Please help...I'm not finding homophones in any of these quotations. What am I missing here?

[Suburban Plankton]

Originally Posted by FoieGrasIsEvil

My fourth grader has a homework assignment that he needed my help on. Naturally I am baffled. The assignment is to find the homophone pairs in a quote from famous people.

My understanding of homophones is that they are words that sound the same but are spelled differently. Words like sea/see, write/right, etc.

I cannot for the life of me find a single homophone in this boy's list of quotes. Maybe its a trick question?

Examples:

"Kids need to hear that if they put in the work, the results will be there."-Michael Jordan

"A lesson worth learning is that whatever your life's work, do it well."-Martin Luther King

Please help...I'm not finding homophones in any of these quotations. What am I missing here?

Perhaps they're supposed to pick out words in those quotes that have homophone pairs?

hear/here, there/their

your/you're

???

[DiamondNinja]

Hear/here
There/their/they're
Your/you're

Edit: jinx to above

[Greg Charles]

That must be it. I don't see any homophone pairs where both sides are contained in the quotes.

Others with one half in the quotations:

need/knead
in/inn
lesson/lessen
do/due/doo/dew

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

Originally Posted by Suburban Plankton

Perhaps they're supposed to pick out words in those quotes that have homophone pairs?

hear/here, there/their

your/you're

???

Directions: circle the homophones in each quotation that famous people offered in response to a request for advice for kids. Then write the homophone partners for the circled words.

Another quote: "Sons and daughters, remember this: There's no credit taken for our talents. How talent is used is what counts."-Madeleine L'Engle

What am I missing here?

Am I supposed to be finding homophones within the words themselves, like in the Michael Jordan quote "hear/there"? Or across the multiple quotes instead of homophones within each individual quote?

I just don't get this.

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

Ah wait...I get it now. We are supposed to find words that have homophones and figure out what their homophonic partner is in our own. OK, that makes sense. Geez. The directions could have been worded differently. Any time I think of those I am looking for pairs immediately.

[CookingWithGas]

Originally Posted by FoieGrasIsEvil

Directions: circle the homophones in each quotation that famous people offered in response to a request for advice for kids. Then write the homophone partners for the circled words.

This means to find words in the quotes that have homophones, circle them, and then write the corresponding homophone. It's a poorly written assignment, I'll agree. I have sent notes to my kids' teachers more than once when I see ambiguous or unclear assignments. These people are communications professionals; there's really no excuse for it.

Sons and daughters, remember this: There's no credit taken for our talents. How talent is used is what counts.

suns
theirs
four
hour

[Chronos]

No, in the Jordan quote, you're supposed to circle "hear", since it's a homophone, and then below that write "here", which is its partner. The assignment isn't to find both partners in each sentence.

[kaylasdad99]

Originally Posted by FoieGrasIsEvil

Directions: circle the homophones in each quotation that famous people offered in response to a request for advice for kids. Then write the homophone partners for the circled words.

Another quote: "Sons and daughters, remember this: There's no credit taken for our talents. How talent is used is what counts."-Madeleine L'Engle

What am I missing here?

Am I supposed to be finding homophones within the words themselves, like in the Michael Jordan quote "hear/there"? Or across the multiple quotes instead of homophones within each individual quote?

I just don't get this.

If a word in an example sentence has a homophone partner in the English language, circle it. Then write the homophone partner(s).

Like so:

"Sons (Suns) and daughters, remember this: There's (Theirs) no credit taken for (four) our (hour) talents. How talent is used is what counts."-Madeleine L'Engle

And you might be able to get away with what (watt).

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

Originally Posted by Chronos

No, in the Jordan quote, you're supposed to circle "hear", since it's a homophone, and then below that write "here", which is its partner. The assignment isn't to find both partners in each sentence.

Yeah, my slow mind finally grasped that with ya'll's help. And me with a BA in English.

**hangs head sheepishly**

Mods, please close...answer ascertained. Been a long day...we are catching up on two days of homework because he's been out sick. Thanks for the help.

[TaoPilot]

Originally Posted by kaylasdad99

If a word in an example sentence has a homophone partner in the English language, circle it. Then write the homophone partner(s).

Like so:

"Sons (Suns) and daughters, remember this: There's (Theirs) no credit taken for (four) our (hour) talents. How talent is used is what counts."-Madeleine L'Engle

And you might be able to get away with what (watt).

Also no (know)

[kaylasdad99]

Originally Posted by TaoPilot

Also no (know)

[robert_columbia]

Originally Posted by Greg Charles

That must be it. I don't see any homophone pairs where both sides are contained in the quotes.

Others with one half in the quotations:

...
do/due/doo/dew

In my accent, do, due, and doo are homophones, but dew is not, it has a different vowel.

[Labdad]

Originally Posted by robert_columbia

In my accent, do, due, and doo are homophones, but dew is not, it has a different vowel.

Mine too. It's like pew and poo, or yew and you, or few and foo

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by Greg Charles

need/knead

Also kneed.

[Little Nemo]

Another one: put/putt.

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by robert_columbia

In my accent, do, due, and doo are homophones, but dew is not, it has a different vowel.

In my accent (upstate NY) due and dew have two pronunciations - du and dyu - depending on how you use them.

[mnemosyne]

our/hour?

put/putt?

Not in my dialect... is there a reference book that expects this assignment to be done with respect to a given dialect (even just a particular dictionary?) because otherwise your kid might be marked down for making or ignoring choices based on dialects.

[Greg Charles]

Originally Posted by robert_columbia

In my accent, do, due, and doo are homophones, but dew is not, it has a different vowel.

Like there's a Y sound before the "oo"? The dictionaries I checked listed that as an alternate pronunciation for both "due" and "dew".

Also "our" is sometimes a homophone for "hour", sometimes for "are", and sometimes doesn't quite sound like either one.

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

Also kneed.

Good catch. I didn't think of that one. Now I'm sitting with my legs tightly crossed.

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

Another one: put/putt.

I thought of that, but ultimately rejected it. The common senses of "put" and "putt" aren't homophones in any accent I can think of. Is there a sense or accent where they are?

[KneadToKnow]

I don't know anything about homophones.

NeedTwoNo

[Thudlow Boink]

Originally Posted by FoieGrasIsEvil

My fourth grader has a homework assignment that he needed my help on. Naturally I am baffled.

forth
kneaded

[Thudlow Boink]

Originally Posted by Greg Charles

lesson/lessen

'And how many hours a day did you do lessons?' said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject.

'Ten hours the first day,' said the Mock Turtle: 'nine the next, and so on.'

'What a curious plan!' exclaimed Alice.

'That's the reason they're called lessons,' the Gryphon remarked: 'because they lessen from day to day.'

This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought it over a little before she made her next remark. 'Then the eleventh day must have been a holiday?'

'Of course it was,' said the Mock Turtle.

'And how did you manage on the twelfth?' Alice went on eagerly.

'That's enough about lessons,' the Gryphon interrupted in a very decided tone.

[robert_columbia]

Originally Posted by mnemosyne

our/hour?

put/putt?

Not in my dialect... is there a reference book that expects this assignment to be done with respect to a given dialect (even just a particular dictionary?) because otherwise your kid might be marked down for making or ignoring choices based on dialects.

Well, it's a fourth grade assignment according to the OP, and when I was in fourth grade, I may have been aware that accents existed, but certainly didn't know that one of the main markers of accents in English is differences in vowels (e.g. some accents merge vowels, some swap them, etc.)

[hibernicus]

Originally Posted by robert_columbia

In my accent, do, due, and doo are homophones, but dew is not, it has a different vowel.

In my accent do and doo are [du:] and due and dew are both [dju:]. I didn't know that for some people the dividing line falls between due and dew.

[Antigen]

Originally Posted by Labdad

Mine too. It's like pew and poo, or yew and you, or few and foo

I pity the few who can't find homophones.

[Pyper]

Okay, now that this thread has received some serious replies, I know I can't be the only one who read the thread title as "Homophobe Help...Need Answer Fast!"

[mnemosyne]

Originally Posted by robert_columbia

Well, it's a fourth grade assignment according to the OP, and when I was in fourth grade, I may have been aware that accents existed, but certainly didn't know that one of the main markers of accents in English is differences in vowels (e.g. some accents merge vowels, some swap them, etc.)

I didn't really mean it in terms of fully understanding the linguistics of accents, but rather "this is the list of 76 homophones kids are expected to learn this year" taken from a particular textbook, lesson plan, dictionary or whatever.

Kind of like my mom makes lists of "action words" or whatever and puts them on the wall of her classroom.

It would just suck to get graded down for listing do/dew/doo/due when the teacher doesn't hear them as being the same and they aren't on the list, that's all. Though naturally a good teacher would give the benefit of the doubt and/or talk to the kid to hear why they made certain choices, it sadly cannot be expected from many teachers.

[njtt]

Homophone

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

Originally Posted by Pyper

Okay, now that this thread has received some serious replies, I know I can't be the only one who read the thread title as "Homophobe Help...Need Answer Fast!"

If its any consolation, I thought that as I typed out the thread title.

My son got a 100% on his assignment, by the way. Thanks guys!