Sound and Sense, 2-71

Time for more instances of the homophone: a word pronounced the same as another but differing in meaning, whether spelled the same way or not, as heir and air.

1. mode (noun): a particular form or variety of something; a form or manner of expression; a possible, customary, or preferred way of doing something; the most frequent value of a set of data; etc.

2. mowed (verb—past tense of mow): to cut down with a scythe or sickle or machine; to kill or destroy in great numbers; etc.

Collecting what he had been owed

For all those lawns that he had mowed

Required a different sort of mode

Of action than he’d thought was right.

He had to show up in the night,

A scythe in hand—and cause a fright

Of such a very wide extent

That debtors knew just what he meant

And paid him promptly—every cent.