When two words are pronounced the same way but have different meanings, it can lead to some confusion for writers.  There’s a name for words like this, homophones.

A homophone is a set of words that sound the same but have different meanings and may or may not be spelled differently.  Homo- means same and -phone means sound or voice. Some notable pairs of homophones include: bare/bear, jeans/genes, and allowed/aloud which is what I’m focusing on today!

Allowed and aloud are two very commonly mixed up words. In fact, today’s post was inspired by the fact that just this week I saw these words used incorrectly three times in posts online! If you’ve gotten these wrong in the past, you are very much not alone but I’d love to help clear up this confusion!

Allowed is a past tense verb meaning to give permission to do something. 

✏️Their mom allowed them to stay after school today. 

🐱The kitten was allowed to eat two treats a day.

🎸I was allowed to stay until the end of the concert.

📖The secret reader read the book aloud to the class. 

🛌At bedtime, each child reads their book aloud to all of us. 

🎤When we play Taylor Swift in the car, I sing aloud when I know the lyrics. 

Here’s a fancy example to use both of these together: 

👩‍🏫The teacher allowed the class to sound out the words aloud as they learned to read. 

If you ever find yourself getting stuck on which of these homophones you need in a sentence, just remember that the word LOUD is part of aloud, so if you mean speak audibly you want it to be LOUD! 

I hope this helps!

Until next time!

XOXO,

Sam Speed Edits