Liam, during the middle of the meal, suddenly stops. And with a very serious inquisitive look, comically subdued by the rubbing his chin, while putting his elbow on the table, asked...
"Why is it called chili, because it's not really chilly, but actually hot?"
After laughing about the way he posed his question, Joel and I tried to explain to him homonyms. But then, while I was up nursing Callum last night, I googled it to make sure. Turns out we were wrong. Technically, a homonym is where the word is spelled the same and pronounced the same, but have different meanings. Liam had taken note of a homophone. That is where the two words sound the same, but are spelled differently and have different meanings (think of your Latin derivatives... homo-same, phono-sound). There is also another variant called homograph, where they are spelled the same, but pronounced differently (graphia-written). Thus, a homonym has to be both a homophone and a homograph.
... so now you know.
Not that you cared to go back to English class again. :)
Not sure why I tried explaining it to Liam, but I ended up opting to just show him the different spellings instead. Which is probably what I should've done from the beginning. No need introducing grammar and Latin roots to a 4-year old...
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