NIXON, Sue; WIJNEN, Riet (ed.)
Homophone Dictionary

“As a student nurse learning medical terminology, I became fascinated with understanding the roots of words. When I had a young family, words were a principal source of entertainment: it was not unusual for one of the children to slip from their chair at the dinner table and fetch a dictionary in order to settle a dispute or satisfy someone’s curiosity. Then I became a teacher and brought this love of words into the classroom. My habit of word collecting became the children’s habit – my pupils became ‘word-lovers’ and ‘list-makers.’ I casually collected homophones for years. When introducing homophones into the classroom, the kids found definitions dull; the typical reaction was, ‘Yes, but give me a sentence using the word!’ and this idea emerged: a book of sentences demonstrating the meanings of homophone pairs or sets.”
—Sue Nixon

Homophone Dictionary was originally a file, compiled by the now 96-year-old former schoolteacher Susan Nixon. She has build up many collections throughout her life,
almost all of them exist out of objects, except one: after her retirement she compiled a word document that by now exist out of almost 1000 homophones; two, or more words that you pronounce similar but have a different meaning, often the spelling is also different. As in a dictionary, the homophones are illustrated with examples—based on autobiographical information. The structure of Homophone Dictionary also refers to speech therapy exercises and concrete poetry.

Published by uh books, 2020
Design by Mevis & van Deursen
Literature / Poetry