Tuesday, 15 September, 2009

A Lovely Literary Lesson

I recently watched Stranger Than Fiction, a movie starring Will Ferrell and Maggie Gyllenhaal. It's a story about Harold Crick, an auditor for the IRS. I'm not going to go into detail about the movie - which I thoroughly enjoyed, by the way - so if you're interested, you're better off reading reviews or watching a trailer or two online. There is, however, one scene in the movie I want to highlight:


In this scene, Harold Crick says to Ana Pascal (a baker):
"I brought you flours."



And in case you don't see how absolutely adorable that is, a little enlightenment from one of my favourite books: the Dictionary

homophone (haw-ma-fone): a word having the same sound as another but of different meaning or origin (e.g. flour, flower)

homonym (haw-ma-nim): a word of the same spelling or sound as another but of different meaning; a homegraph or homophone

homograph (haw-ma-graf): a word spelled like another but of different meaning or origin (e.g. buffet, buffet)

Get it?
I wouldn't mind if someone gave me flours.
Fortunately, I love both.