What is it called when you combine two words that then sound like another word or phrase? [closed]
For example caper and bull become capable. Like the first line of the I crossword.
Solution 1:
- Homophone
While this is typically used to describe single words sounding the same (such as "their, they're, there") a few sources (like this one) suggest that it works for phrases too, and definitions tend to say it can apply to "groups of letters" or "groups of characters" that are pronounced the same as another group of letters/characters, so the focus on 'words' is less important.
- Homophone phrase
To avoid ambiguity, you could simply say "homophone phrase", which is used here for instance (and several further examples of homophone phrases are given on that page), and is a more intuitive way of clarifying that it consists of more than one word, just in case that is the priority in your question, to distinguish it from single word homophones.
This is not more correct than simply saying "homophone" to be technically accurate, but is the best way to say it if your priority is to be sure you are understood as distinguishing from one-word homophones.
- Oronym
I personally haven't heard of this word before, but according to Wikipedia,
Homophones of multiple words or phrases (as sometimes seen in word games) are also known as "oronyms".
The original source was not cited beyond the book to confirm this was first usage:
This term was coined by Gyles Brandreth and first published in his book The Joy of Lex (1980), and it was used in the BBC programme Never Mind the Full Stops, which also featured Brandreth as a guest.
This seems to be the best single word to describe what you want.
Note that if you specifically want to refer to only two words (like the question title implies) then you'd need to adjust the above options and simply specify that by saying a "two-word homophone" or a "two-word oronym". I can't imagine a term exists for specifically two-word homophone phrases or two-word oronyms, but since your example has three words, I imagine that's not an issue in your question.
The answers I gave here presume that it's two or more words.