Prose checks › Homophones Pro

Prose check: homophones and sound-alikesSpelled right. Still wrong.

“She poured over the map.” “Their going to be late.” Every word is spelled correctly, so your spell checker stays quiet. Falcontext’s homophone checker doesn’t.

Check your draft – it’s free

Why spell checkers miss them

Because they’re real words. Their and there, whose and who’s, then and than, reign and rein, pore and pour.

A spell checker only asks: does this word exist? The real question is: is it the word you meant?

BeforeShe poured over the map, more lost then ever. Whose going to tell her?
AfterShe pored over the map, more lost than ever. Who’s going to tell her?

How the homophone checker works

No AI. Two halves:

  • Rules written by hand that look at the words around a sound-alike (“their going to”, “the horse’s reigns”), each one tested against what it should leave alone.
  • 100,000 rules from published fiction. For each pair of sound-alikes, the words that come before and after them in English fiction from 2000–2019 (Google Books). When your phrase is one published books almost never use, and its sound-alike is common there, Falcontext flags it.

It all ships inside Falcontext and runs on your own device. Falcontext looks nothing up online.

Guidelines, not rules. Most of these will be real slips. Not all: a pun or a character’s own spelling can look the same. You decide.

Falcontext’s Edit tab beside Perch’s writing pad: the Homophones and sound-alikes check open, finding poured for pored, then for than, whose for who’s, their for they’re and reigns for reins, marked in the text.
Finds
A real word where its sound-alike was meant, each one marked in your text, with the word it probably should be. In dialogue, Falcontext leaves “would of” alone: that’s a way of speaking.
Traffic light
  • None
  • 1–2
  • 3 or more

It’s also in the Write tab’s quick check of today’s words, with the other slips: doubled words, spacing and unfinished sentences.

Homophones are read one by one in the guide’s proofing pass: they aren’t in Fix all, because each needs your eyes.

Which pair always gets you?

Questions about homophones.

Why doesn’t my spell checker catch homophones?

Because both words are spelled correctly. A spell checker checks whether a word exists; a homophone check has to work out which word the sentence needs, from the words around it.

Does the homophone checker use AI?

No. It uses hand-written rules and 100,000 rules made from word counts in published fiction (Google Books). Everything runs on your own device. Your writing is never sent anywhere, and no AI is used on your writing in any way.

Is the homophone checker free?

Homophones are in Pro. Without it the light still goes orange or red when there’s a slip somewhere; Pro shows you where.

Related checks

Dialogue punctuationTense and POV slipsClichésCrutch words

In Falcontext

Self-editing guideWhat to do in each passEditing passesRun the checks scene by sceneHow the lights are setLines from published fiction

Your next chapter starts today.

Set a goal, open your draft and let the checks look over your shoulder.

Add to Chrome – it's free

Or get the desktop app or Perch, the web app.

Free forever plan · No sign-up · Pro from $1.99/month with a free trial