Heteronyms are dangerous. Try to keep them out of book titles, blog posts and website names.

Does the team drink polish?

In an online group for authors, Jessica Bell announced that she is writing a book called Polish Your Fiction: A Quick & Easy Self-Editing Guide.

I started reading her post twice and each time -- for an instant -- I thought that "Polish" was referring to someone from Poland. 

Polish and polish are heteronyms -- words written identically (or identically except for uppercasing the first letter) but having different pronunciations and meanings.

The meaning of a heteronym usually becomes apparent because of its context, but if you can avoid ambiguity and delay -- do so.

• Try to keep heteronyms out of the titles of your books, blog posts and websites. If you cause a reader to hesitate, you may lose her.
• Push a homonym out of the first position in a sentence. Try inserting a 'helper' word to precede a homonym so readers know what's going on. "Please Polish . . . " or "Why You Should Polish . . ." prepares readers to absorb the correct word.
• Heteronyms can cause problems even within text. Does "I read a lot of books" take place in the present tense or in the past? A 'helper' like "did" or "do" or "last year" can remove the ambiguity, as can rewriting the sentence.
• The position of a word in a line of text can cause a stumble. If the last two words in a line of text are "A sewer," "The bass" or "I read," the pronunciation and meaning might not be apparent until the reader reads the words on the next line.
• Uppercasing and lowercasing can clarify the difference between Polish and polish, but not between Bass and bass.

Wikipedia provides many examples of heteronyms, including:

1.    A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
2.    Do you know what a buck does to does?
3.    They were too close to the door to close it.
4.    The buck does funny things when does are present.
5.    Don't desert me here in the desert!
6.    When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
7.    The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
8.    How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
9.    With every number I read, my mind gets number and number.
10.    He could lead if he would get the lead out.
11.    After a number of injections my jaw got number.
12.    I did not object to the object.
13.    We must polish the Polish furniture.
14.    He thought it was time to present the present.
15.    The farm was used to produce produce.
16.    The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
17.    There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
18.    A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
19.    To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
20.    I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21.    Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
22.    The weather was beginning to affect his affect
23.    The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
24.    The bandage was wound around the wound.