Welcome back to another edition of Friday Follies! Especially for you, the Grammar Cop has prepared a puzzle of perplexing pairs…of words. (Sorry there is no synonym for “word” that starts with a P. 😀 ) See if you can differentiate these.
- Lead/led
- Read/read
- Peek/peak/pique
- Flaunt/flout
Do you know when to use which word? Here are some sentences to help you out. Yes, the Grammar Cop realizes that she may have talked about some of these before. But it never hurts to revisit the rules, I always say!
Lead (rhymes with “creed”) is the present tense of the verb to lead, as in I lead the class now. (Lead is also a noun meaning a heavy metal – no, not a rock group. 😀 )
Led is the past tense of the verb to lead, as in She led the class yesterday.
Read (pronounced “reed”) is the present tense of the verb to read, as in I read the newspaper now.
Read (pronounced “red”) is also the past tense of to read, as in I read the newspaper yesterday.
Peek is the present tense of the verb to peek, as in I peek at the weather report on my phone.
Peak is a noun meaning the top of something, or a mountain, as in I reached the peak of my profession.
Pique is a noun meaning anger or annoyance, as in The extra tax made me have a fit of pique. It’s also a verb as in That piques my curiosity, meaning arouses or stimulates. (Thanks John! 😀 )
Flaunt is a verb meaning to show off something, as in He always likes to flaunt his new car.
Flout is a verb meaning to break a rule or law, as in She tried to flout the no-smoking law but got caught. (Good!)
This concludes Part One of our perplexing pairs of the day. Next week will feature Part Two. Rest assured that there is really no end to the darn things!
Crossed Eyes and Dotted Tees 
Read all about it! From the Gnome Gnews Gazette:
Henri the Gnome flaunted his new red hat atop the peak of the Matterhorn. He flouted the law by climbing before dawn. After a quick chase Henri was led away by the gendarme. As it happens, the lead singer from the heavy metal band, Mithril Mermaid, peeked out from behind a pillar and tossed him the key to her convertible. Whereupon he made a fast getaway giving the gendarme an enormous fit of pique. No doubt this story will be read for generations. 😀
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OMG this is an instant classic! One day, we’ll have to collect these witty comments of yours into a little book!! With your catchy illustrations, of course – de rigueur! 😀
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I peeked at your blog and read your post. It piqued my interest. I wanted to see how you flaunted your vast knowledge of English grammar. 😀
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You may lead me astray with such talk! 😁
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My face turned red, when I read this. I realize I have been flaunting when I should have flouted. Now I’ve been outed.
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😄 Well I’m so glad I’ve led you to knowing all the good words!
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I think you missed an obvious one, since you used one of the words (no, I couldn’t come up with a synonym either. I advise just dropping the ‘of words’ bit entirely.) that way you would end with perplexing pairs…or it’s word twin…pears. (Are these palindromes? Words that sound the same but spell differently? Ivan never remember.)
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Hi there, long time no see! Not sure what you’re saying I missed!
A palindrome is a word (or sentence) that reads the same backwards and forwards, like “pop” or “Madam, I’m Adam.” Words that sound the same but are spelled differently are called homonyms or homophones.
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Pair and Pear. Always a prickly one!
And I can never keep the fancy words straight. Homonym! Sigh. You’d think I could master this by now. But reaching a half century has not made me any smarter! Thanks.
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Prickly pear, haha!
I didn’t mention homophones and homographs, as I didn’t want your head to ‘splode. 😀
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