Омофоны. Shit and sheet

Hi, everyone!
Did you know that there are special words called “homophones”? It has nothing to do with phones, if that’s what you thought. Homophones (омонимы)  are words which have absolutely the same pronunciation but different meanings. For example, if you write that you’re so board, people will misunderstand you, because you’re not a board made of wood from a tree, you’re bored, you’re not interested.

Can you find another example in the picture? I’ll give you a hint  – it also has something to do with trees…

There are also words which have almost the same pronunciation, but still sound a bit different. For example, if you say “I want buy this” – it’s incorrect, because you meant “I won’t buy this”. One sound can make a great difference.

So as not to make fools of ourselves and do everything right, let’s find out a little more about…

Sheet and shit

They are pronounced differently. Это не омонимы.

Sheet: long eeeee: [ʃi:t]

Переводится как: простыня, лист, страница

A sheet is a broad, flat, thin, usually rectangular piece of material, such as paper, metal, glass or fabric.

• A sheet of paper – лист бумаги
• Sheets – простыни
• A sheet of music – нотный лист
• To be as white as a sheet – белый как снег (because a person is ill or frightened) She’s as white as a sheet! Has she seen a ghost?
• To be both sheets in the wind/ to be three sheets in the wind/ to be four sheets in the wind – пьяный. After a bottle of champagne, Jane was three sheets in the wind.
• A clean sheet – с чистого листа. I want to start the new year with a clean sheet.

Shit: /ʃɪt/
It is very vulgar. Переводится как: дерьмо, черт!, дрянь, хлам, офигеть!

Oh shit! – проклятье! We say this when something very bad happens.
Oh, shit. I’ve forgotten to do my homework again.
Holy shit! – о Господи! We say this when something is very bad or very surprising. Это восклицание показывает ошеломление происходящим.
Holy shit! I’ve never seen such a big doll in my life!

• To scare the shit out of someone: to make someone very frightened. You scared the shit out of me!
• To shit a brick (vulgar!) – to be very scared of worried. He almost shit a brick when he jumped with a parachute.
• Shit happens. – bad things happen, it’s normal, you can’t do anything about it. Well, don’t be sad, shit happens. Better luck next time.

Now fill in the gaps with the words and phrases from this page:
1. I need to do the laundry today. I don’t have any clean ______________.
2. ________________! I’ve lost my keys.
3. He’s as ____________________. What happened?
4. You ____________! Don’t ever walk up to me like that again!
5. Do you have a __________ of paper? I want to write something down.

Thanks for reading =) don’t mix up sheet and shit!
Улыбайтесь любым неудачам, это нормально – shit happens ! =)