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Homonyms (in Greek
homoios = identical and onoma = name) are words
that have the same phonetic form (homophones) or
orthographic form (homographs) but unrelated
meaning. In derivation, homonym means the same
name, homophone means the same sound, and
homograph means the same letters.
An example of a
homonym which is both a homophone
and a homograph is fluke. Fluke is a fish, as well
as a flatworm, the end parts of a whale or an
anchor, and a stroke of luck, all of which four
separate lexemes with separate etymologies, share
the one form, fluke. Similarly, a river bank, a
savings bank, and a bank of switches share only a
common spelling and pronunciation, but not
meaning.
The first
homonym that one learns in English are
probably the
homophones to, too, and two, but the
sentence "Too much to do in two days" would
confuse no one. (Note, however, when read with a
natural rhythm, to has a schwa and is not
homophonous with too or two.) There, their, and
they're are familiar examples as well. Lead the
metal and lead the verb, or moped the motorized
bicycle and moped the past tense of mope are
examples of homographs; they are not homophones,
because they are pronounced differently. The
National Puzzlers' League calls homographs
heteronyms.
The purpose of a thesaurus is to offer the user a
listing of similar or related words; these are often,
but not always,
synonyms. In a way,
Homonyms are similar
to synonyms.
Homophones in the
context of word games are also known as "oronyms".
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.
Examples of "oronyms" (which may only be true
homophones in certain dialects of English) include
'mint spy' vs 'mince pie';
'ice cream' vs. 'I scream'
'stuffy nose' vs. 'stuff he knows';
'euthanasia' vs. 'youth in Asia';
'i.c.u.' vs. 'I see you'.
'depend' vs. 'deep end'
'the sky' vs. 'this guy'
'four candles' vs. 'fork handles'
'insinuate' vs. 'in sin you ate'
'Sand which is there' vs. Sandwiches there'
Two oronyms appear in "Ana's Song (Open Fire)" by
Silverchair. While they initially sound like
mondegreens, reading the lyrics will reveal that
this is not the case. The first line of the song,
"Please die Ana, for as long as you're here we're
not", also sounds very much like "Please Diana,
...", which confuses people into believing that
"Ana" is a person, when really it is just a
nickname for anorexia. The next verse is "And Ana
wrecks your life, like an anorexia life", which is
another oronym that proves "ana's" real meaning.
American comedian Jeff Foxworthy frequently uses
oronyms in his Appalachian routine. Notable
examples include, "Initiate: My wife ate two
sandwiches, initiate (and then she ate) a bag o'
tater chips." and "Mayonnaise: Mayonnaise (Man,
there is) a lot of people here tonight."
also see:
Homonym Quiz
In some accents,
various sounds have merged in that they are no
longer distinctive, and thus words that differ
only by those sounds in an accent that maintains
the distinction (a minimal pair) are homophonous
in the accent with the merger. Some examples are
pin and pen in many southern American accents, and
merry, marry, and Mary in many western American
accents. The pairs do, due and forward, foreword
are homophonous in most American accents but not
in most British accents. Similarly, talk and
torque are distinguished in most dialects of
American English, but are
homophones in British
English. |
