Homophones Hurt Your Writing: Rhos, Roes, Rose, and Rows

Welcome to this edition of Words For Thought, the blog on wordrefiner.com. Like many of the previous blogs we are looking at homophones. Words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings. 
I understand how important it is to have an error-free manuscript. With over 40 years of experience, I have found that homophones give almost every writer fits and difficulties. Because we sound words out in our mind, it is easy to write the wrong word.
Let’s not forget typographical errors also, a slip of the finger on the keyboard can create a different word that may not be caught by a spell-checker. There are many groups of words that vary by only one letter, such as must, mist and most. These three words have vowels that are beside each other on the keyboard.
The correctly spelled word in the wrong context will not be flagged by most spell-checkers. Word Refiner is dedicated to uprooting all of these invisible errors and providing your document free of spelling errors that you want and deserve. I find invisible spelling errors in more than 95% of published books.

Now, onto today’s episode! Number nine in the series about quadruple homophones. High Score! #QuadrupleHomophones
Rhos is interesting and obscure, unless you live in the United Kingdom. Then you might know it is Welsh, and refers to a common geographical feature of Wales, the moors, which is an area of open and uncultivated land, sometimes referred to as heath or wold. The word is also used to refer to various areas and regions in and around Wales.
Secondarily, Rho is the seventeenth letter of the Greek alphabet.
Roes are eggs from fish. Fish eggs usually come in a large mass when compared to the size of the fish itself. Caviar is roe that has been salted, pickled, or preserved in some way and considered a delicacy by some people.
Another definition is of small deer found on the Eurasian continent. They are sort of red in the summer and grayish in the winter, and lack a visible tail. They have a shoulder height of 2 to 2 1/2 feet, weighing approximately 35 to 70 pounds.
A third definition is as an acronym, the first letter of each word is combined for ease of use of a commonly used phrase, a group of Rules Of Engagement, followed by military and police forces in many parts of the world.
Rose, is a woody, perennial plant that flowers and produces thorns also, in the plant genus of Rosa. There are over a hundred species and many thousands of cultivars. There are so many colors and differences, my favorite for scent are the tea roses.
Rows, in the simplest of definitions, a quantity of things lined up in an orderly fashion and several layers. For example, to play chess, the pieces must be lined up in the proper sequence in their rows.
Also, the lines of information in a table or database. The lines of stitches in knitting or crocheting.
Also, propel a boat with oars, third person present: He rows the boat across the lake.
 
There they are, four words with identical sounds.  If you use the wrong word your reader might think they stumbled on a hidden bump while reading and lose the reading momentum you worked so hard to create.  Use every tool available to prevent that from happening, do not give your readers a reason to abandon your story. Use Word Refiner, beta readers, critique partners, proofreaders and editors to ensure that your work is error free and as smooth as possible.
Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed this issue of Homophones Hurt Your Writing on Words For Thought.  Follow me on twitter: @wordrefiner, for more information about hazardous homophones search for #HomophonesHurtYourWriting or #TyposHurtYourWriting on Twitter.
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