QT 2 – Video Transcript and Bonus Info
Welcome to my “wordshop” and another QuickTakes with Cate on all things writing in under two minutes. Today we look at word use: the words “home” and “hone.” You might remember that in the movie, E.T., a sad-eyed alien points a finger toward the sky and tells the children who found him, “E.T. home phone.” The children quickly realize that he means “E.T. phone home.”
With all the garbled phrases we often hear, we might wonder whether a few extra-terrestrials still roam the earth. One such phrase is “hone in” for “home in.”
The correct phrase, “home in,” means to move toward. In the 1800s the phrase referred to homing pigeons, trained to return home—as E.T. wants to do. In the early 1900s, the phrase came to refer to aircraft and missiles. Somewhere along the way, people started to use the verb “hone”—which means to sharpen—for the verb “home.”
But have you ever heard of a honing pigeon? If so, that bird had a very sharp beak! The confusion is so widespread that even top writers occasionally mistake the two. Even the editors of the New York Times didn’t catch this error in this sentence: “While Mr. Bradley honed in on healthcare….”
So many people make this mistake that an editor for the New Yorker suggested that “hone in” ought to be accepted. After all, if we do something wrong long enough, it becomes right, right? No! Let’s try to hone our skills.
Here’s a quick test for choosing the correct phrase: If you would say “zero in,” then you want “home in.” If you say “sharpen,” then you want “hone”—with NO “in.”
Pause the video to give these sentences a try:
- E.T honed/homed his speaking skills by listening to the television.
- Elliott worried that the government would home/hone in on them in the woods.
The rest of the story:
Below are the answers to the practice sentences. How did you do?
- E.T honed his speaking skills by listening to the television.
- Elliott worried that the government would home in on them in the woods.
To further clarify meaning, Grammar Girl (Mignon Fogerty) takes a look at the origins of the word “hone.” She points out that it comes from an Old English word that meant “stone” or “rock,” explaining that we hone knives on a sharpening—or honing—stone. By rhyming hone” with “stone,” we can more easily remember the correct meaning.
You can read her discussion at this link:
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/hone-in-or-home-in
You can also read editor Mary Norris’s response to readers who flagged the mistaken use in a New Yorker piece. Norris argues for accepting “hone in” since it’s so widely misused and then suggests that confounding the problem is the expression “horn in.” She serves up a dollop of humor as she tackles these commonly confused terms.
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/dont-try-to-hone-in-on-a-copy-