Hold the phone! What's a homophone?

So, it occurred to me today while responding to a friend's comment on one of my facebook posts that something we are often taught in grade school is not expounded upon correctly - not entirely anyway. 

You all know by now, I am sure, that I am quite the grammar/spelling nerd. I am sure you all will also remember that grammar lesson (maybe in second grade or so?) where you were taught all about homonyms. You know - words like to, two, and too, right? This is not entirely correct. Let me just clear something up really quickly. Homonyms are actually words that are spelled the same and are pronounced the same, but have different meanings. Ex: "May" (as in the month of May), and "may" (as in, "May I please have another cookie?"). The former example that I gave (to, two, and too) is actually an example of a group of words called homophones. They are words that sound the same, thus they have the same pronunciation (like homonyms, which also have the same pronunciation), but are spelled differently. 

I know it's a little confusing (and oh-so-irrelevant. haha), but for those of you who are visual learners and like to see things drawn out in pictures, I found this graph on diffen.com:

So technically, all homonyms are homophones because they all sound the same, but not all homophones are homonyms, because they are spelled differently.  It's like the square. All squares are rectangles because they have four sides; however, not all rectangles are squares because not all rectangles have four equal sides. Make sense? 

Aren't you glad I cleared that up? I am sure your lives have all been improved upon considerably now that I've shared this profound knowledge with you. I know, I know. You can all sleep soundly tonight. You're welcome. Haha. ;) 

Now - in other, more significant news: The Purple Lady's half-birthday bash is winding down this weekend, so I thought I would give you all one last reminder of the awesome giveaways she has been hosting over at All Things Purple. 

Day 7: One box set of the Janitors series, by Tyler Whitesides

Day 6: One copy of Drawing out the Dragons, by James A. Owen

Day 5: Two dozen of the best pumpkin cookies ever from The Luckiest - This giveaway is open to residents of the Las Vegas metropolitan area only. 

Day 4: Custom order of one dozen gourmet cupcakes from Silver Spoon Catering - This giveaway is only open to residents of the Northern Utah area.

Day 3: Amethyst Healing Crystal

Day 2: Cragbridge Hall, Book 1: The Inventor's Secret, by Chad Morris

Day 1: Blackmoore, by Julianne Donaldson

If I calculated correctly, all of these giveaways end tomorrow night at midnight, so hurry on over to All Things Purple and get those last entries in. :)