Question

Choose the correct homonym to complete the sentence.
She _____ the story to her child at bedtime.
A) Read
B) Red
C) Rode
D) Ride

Answer 1

Hint: Homonyms are words that have the same spelling irrespective of their pronunciation i.e. they could either have the same or a different pronunciation. Homonyms can also be words that have different spellings but are pronounced in the same way. For e.g. PREY and PRAY.

Complete answer:
The sentence in the question includes the word ‘story’. Therefore, it is something that would be told to someone, heard from someone, or read by someone. Hence, it is clear that the blank has to be filled with the correct form of the verb ‘Read’.

Now let us look into the given options:
Option A) Read – The word ‘read’ is the correct past tense of the word ‘read’. Both these words have the same spelling but different pronunciations. The present tense ‘read’ is pronounced as ‘REED’ and the past tense ‘read’ is pronounced as ‘RED’. We can say that both these words are homographs. Thus, this is the correct option.
Option B) Red – The word ‘red’ is a colour and it refers to the colour of ‘human blood’, ‘ripe tomato’ etc. It is not a verb and cannot be used in the blank provided in the question. It is used as an adjective. “I want that red car.” Thus this option is wrong.
Option C) Rode – The word ‘rode’ is the past tense of the word ‘ride’. An example of its usage in a sentence is; “He rode his bike as fast as he could.” This is not the appropriate word to fill the blank with. Thus, it is the wrong option.
Option D) Ride – The word ‘ride’ means to sit on and control the movements of an animal (horse, elephant, camel etc.) ‘Ride’ is also used for controlling vehicles like bikes, scooter, bicycle etc. For e.g. “No he cannot ride a bicycle.” Thus, this option is also wrong.

Thus, the correct answer is Option (A) i.e, She read the story to her child at bedtime.

Note:
- Homonyms can be divided as homophones and homographs depending on spellings and pronunciations.
- Homophones are those words that have the same sound or the same pronunciation (they can have the same or different spellings) For e.g. RUFF (is a bird) and ROUGH (means uneven) have the same pronunciation. KITE (a bird) and KITE (a toy flown in wind) have the same spellings as well.
- Homographs are those words which have the same spellings, but it may or may not have the same pronunciation. For e.g. READ (present tense) and READ (past tense) have different pronunciations, but LIGHT (less weight) and LIGHT (not dark) have the same pronunciation.