Jj is for Jottings 111.  Word Confusions: Ton/Tonne; Home/Hone.

For all the reasons given in the article on punctuation, clear communication is important, since that is the whole point: to get your message across to the listener/reader.  Many people confuse similar words, which undermines their message.  There will be articles from time to time on this topic, beginning with the word confusions Ton/Tonne; Home/Hone.

WHY CHOOSE TON/TONNE and HOME/HONE, FOR GOODNESS’ SAKE?

These may seem like strange choices, because they don’t crop up all that often in conversation but, like the frequent incorrect spelling and pronunciation of paedophile (NOT pedophile), these crop up in the media enough to motivate me to say my piece about them.  And, come to think about it, I have heard “hone” used incorrectly in conversation quite a number of times.

TON/TONNE.

A ton (which rhymes with “bun”) is a measure of weight in the Imperial system.  This is the system which has pounds and ounces.  It comes from the word “tun”, which was a term applied to the cask of the largest capacity.  In the United Kingdom and in Australia a ton was 2240 pounds (lbs).  However, in the United States, a ton was 2000 lbs.  Since there was room for confusion, the English ton is known as a long ton and, for obvious reasons, the America ton is a short ton.  Just to confuse things even further, the metric system came in and there was now a measure of 1000 kgs – a tonne (which is equal to 2204 lbs.)  This can also be referred to as a metric ton.

The word “tonne” should rhyme with “con’, and if people pronounced it properly we would all know where we were.  But they often pronounce it as “ton” – a different weight.  Does this matter?  Not to most people, I shouldn’t think, since the difference in weight is not very much.  In the course of my life, I don’t expect a major situation to arise because somebody has said “ton” instead of “tonne” and the resultant weight was incorrect.  However, there are areas of life where the differences would matter quite a lot – when it is important to be precise – and so it would be much easier if everybody just got it right in the first place.

Colloquial Use of Ton.

There is another, more general use of “ton”, meaning a large amount of something.  If I said I had a ton of paperwork to do, I don’t mean literally 2240 lbs. of paper.  (Can you imagine how much paper that would be?  I have it on good authority that it would be approximately 200,000 sheets.)

HOME/HONE.

I am referring to this in the context of “to home in on something”.  “Hone” is always a verb. It means to sharpen or make more acute. For example, you can “hone” a skill.  You also hone a blade.  I first came across this word when I was a young child in the Harry Belafonte song There’s a Hole in the Bucket – which just goes to show how old I am.  Liza told “dear Henry” to sharpen a blade, finishing with “hone it”.  Clearly the words were synonyms, so that’s how I learned the word “hone” at quite a young age.  It’s amazing where we pick up our vocabulary.  For more on that topic, see keep reading to your children   and learning vocabulary through reading .

“Home” is sometimes used as a verb to mean to move in toward a destination or target with accuracy. For example, you can “home in on that delicious smell and realise it’s freshly baked cookies.” Missiles home in on targets.  It’s actually very easy to remember this, because it is what a homing pigeon does, and I’m sure that’s where the expression would have come from.  (After writing those words I did a bit of research, to discover that that is exactly where the phrase came from in the 19^th century.)

You could argue that “hone in” means that you are sharpening your focus on a trajectory towards a goal, but I think that’s simply justification for having misheard the phrase in the first place.  “Home in” makes much more sense.

IS THIS JUST NIT-PICKING?

You could argue that, but I go back to my original assertion, which is that the point of communication is to get your message across.  And if you can do this with a minimum of confusion, you can keep moving on to the next interesting thing.

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