Google Search Leads to Grammar Lesson

I use Google search all.the.time.  constantly.

If ever I have a question pop into my head that I don't know the answer to, I ask Google.  Such as:
"Full Moons 2011" when my coworkers are particularly weird,
"psychopath vs sociopath" when my mom and I were watching a soap opera,
or "San Diego for kids" while planning our latest vacation.

Google knows all.

And I know less and less with each passing day.

Just now I was going to write a blog all about how anxious I've been feeling lately.  I've got a lot of things on my mind and things I need to plan and I feel like I'm all wound up, but instead of preparing to explode, I kind of want to drop everything and eat a pint of ice cream.  I'll save 'eating feelings' for a future blog post though.

So, I was going to write about being 'wound up' but as soon as I began typing it, I started second guessing my spelling.  Was 'wound up' really the same spelling as 'I covered my wound with a bandaid'?

And thus I turned to google: 

'wound up tighter than a drum' {search}

Yup!  That's the correct spelling.

The next inquiry was obvious:

'words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently' {search}

And thus I got a grammar lesson on Homonyms.

I'm a stickler for the correct usage of there, they're and their, as well as too, to and two, so I figured I'd share this with you.

Homonyms

Homonyms can be defined as two or more words that share the same spelling, or the same pronunciation, or both, but have different meanings.

Since there are several “types” of homonyms (e.g., same spelling but different pronunciation, same pronunciation but different spelling, same spelling and same pronunciation), homonyms are broken down into 3 sub-catagories:

Homophones:
Same Pronunciation.
Different meanings.
May or may not be spelled the same way.

Example: Write and Right.  Bear and Bare. Carat and Carrot.

Homographs:
Same Spelling.
Different Meanings.
May or may not be pronounced the same.

Example:  Present (a gift) and Present (to introduce).  Down (opposite of up) or  Down (feathers).  and of course Wound (up tight) and Wound (injury).


Heteronyms:
Same Spelling.
Different Meaning.
Different Pronunciation.

Basically - they are homographs that are not homophones.

Examples:  Polish (people from Poland) and Polish (buff the floor).  Record (write) and Record (set a world record). Desert (abandon) and Desert (arid region).



Makes perfect sense, huh?
Okay, maybe it's still as confusing as ever...