Linguistics is confusing but fun. 

For example, there are allographs (different letters or combinations of letters that represent the exact same sound such as “f””, “ph” and sometimes even “gh”) and heterographs: words that sound the exact same but are sometimes spelled differently, e.g., male and mail in one sense, and rose (the flower) and rose (the act of having risen, in the other).  And, of course, homophones (which are heterographs that are always spelled differently).

In the foregoing context, but different in aspect, the spellings of mold and mould are interesting and their relationship is hard to define linguistically because they have identical ranges of diverse meanings, from to form something or someone to a fungus, with the spelling varying on a regional basis. 

But their range of meanings can raise interesting confusion with respect to a phrase such as “helped ‘mold’ (or ‘mould’) a person.  One variant is sort of positive, stressing the formed aspect in a positive manner but, as a sort of metaphor, using its fungal aspect might mean to somehow lead a person to decay. 

It must be a bit of a boring day!   

Hmm, boring, as in making a hole or as in feeling a lack of energy and motivation, which brings to mind “hole” and “whole”.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.