Capitonyms

A capitonym is a word whose meaning changes based on whether or not it is capitalized.

Capitonyms can be nouns, verbs, or adjectives. Examples of pairs of capitonyms are:

Turkey (the country) and turkey (the bird)

China (the country) and china (as in porcelain)

Most often, capitonym pairs feature one word as a common noun and the other as a proper noun. Verbs can also be capitonyms. For instance:

March (the month) and march (to walk)

Capitonyms can also be adjectives, as in:

Titanic (the ship) and titanic (gigantic)

Sometimes, a capitonym doesn't change just in meaning, but also in pronunciation -- for example:

Mobile (the city in Alabama) is pronounced differently than a mobile phone.

A fun sentence like this one can help students appreciate the importance of proper capitalization:

A turkey may march in Turkey in May or March!

Capitonyms are mostly a subset or variation on multiple-meaning words or homonyms. They have the same spelling but different meanings. Of course, if one defines the spelling to include capitalization, capitonyms can be said to be sound-alike or homophones (different words with different spellings that sound-alike). Both of these categorizations are true in cases where the pair of capitonyms are pronounced the same. In the case of Mobile/mobile, there is the same spelling (unless one counts capitalization) but they are pronounced differently so they aren't sound-alikes. At the end of the day, this effort at defining and categorizing is a fun puzzle but more than a little esoteric.

Homonyms, or multiple meaning words, are words that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings. For example, bear.

A bear (the animal) can bear (tolerate) very cold temperatures.

The driver turned left (opposite of right) and left (departed from) the main road.

Homophones, also known as sound-alike words, are words that are pronounced identically although they have different spellings and meanings. These words are a very common source of confusion when writing. Common examples of sets of homophones include: to, too, and two; they're and there; bee and be; sun and son; which and witch; and plain and plane.

Homographs, also sometimes known as Heteronyms or Heterophones, have the same spelling, different pronunciations, different meanings. They are a subset of multiple meaning words. Examples of homographs (same spelling, different pronunciation, different meaning):

Wind: I need to wind the alarm clock so I can fly my kite on in the early morning gusty wind.

Record: Please record the program when they try to beat the world record for word nerdiness.

Excuse: Please excuse this poor excuse for art.

Bass: I like to play my bass guitar, while my brother likes to fish for bass in the pond.

Bow: He took a bow after shooting my bow and arrow in the archery tournament.

Close: I was sitting very close to the open door, so the teacher asked me to close it for her.

Desert: We had to desert our broken down car and hike through the hot, dry desert to look for help.