mat@hou5d.UUCP (M Terribile) (09/12/83)
The set { two, to, too } represents a triple homonym. How many of these can
we find? If we admit technical words, I can come up with a few:
{ bite, byte, bight }
{ sync, sinc, sink }
{ wright, right, write }
Abbreviations ( eg { led, lead, Light Emmitting Diode }, { Electrical Metallic
Tubing, Emergency Medical Techicnian, EMulator Traps } ) don't count.
As an aside, is English unusual in the number of homonyms it has?
Mark Terribile
Duke of deNetbdot@hogpd.UUCP (J.BARRETT) (09/12/83)
for,four,fore
dcs@houxa.UUCP (09/12/83)
>> As an aside, is English unusual in the number of homonyms it has?
No! French has 5-tuple homonyms, e.g.,
{sent, sens (verb, not noun), sans, sang, cent}
French verbs routinely give rise to 6-tuple homonyms, e.g.,
{chanter, chante', chante'e, chante's, chante'es, chantai}
Chinese and Japanese are also renowned for having many homonyms, even if
one demands that two Chinese homonyms have the same tone, but my knowledge
of both languages is too sketchy for me to give examples without a
dictionary.tll@druxu.UUCP (09/12/83)
In your list of homonyms, you put in a triple that could be a
quadruple:
{ wright, write, right, rite }
Tom LaidigFtG@rochester.UUCP (FtG) (09/13/83)
The Guiness book of world records lists the most homonyms (9) for rose, rhos (plural of rho, Greek letter) roes (fish eggs), etc. This kind of trivia is easily found in a good trivia book (Guiness is perhaps the best). I suggest you do a little research before you clog the net. FtG @ rochester
apdoo@alice.UUCP (09/13/83)
How about the following?... for,four,fore or,oar,ore row,rho,roe so,sow,sew lay,lei,lait There must be dozens more..... Alan Weiss, Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ
jhc@hou5a.UUCP (09/13/83)
Boy, anyone who thinks that 'sens' and 'cent', or 'chanter' and 'chante^H'' sound the same in French must be a native English speaker. In fact, while I'm nitpicking, 'to' and 'too' sound completely different as well. Sigh, it must be the New York accents. Jonathan (BBC) Clark [houx*|ariel|vax135]!hou5a!jhc
reid@uwvax.ARPA (Glenn Reid) (09/13/83)
{ aisle, I'll, isle }leichter@yale-com.UUCP (Jerry Leichter) (09/14/83)
"Must be the New York accents"? New Yorkers don't HAVE accents. What you are mistakenly calling an accent is the LACK of an accent - which sounds strange to the rest of you. -- Jerry (From New York, among other places...)
tag@tty3b.UUCP (09/14/83)
"To" and "too" sound different? They don't to me. On the other hand, I do
recall a "Candid Camera" sequence, shot in the Deep South, of people tring to
explain the difference between the sounds of the words "all" and "oil". To
the average Northern ear, the difference was barely detectable.
- Tom Gloger, Teletype Corporation, ihnp4!otuxa!tty3b!tagbill@utastro.UUCP (09/16/83)
>> As an aside, is English unusual in the number of homonyms it has?
Chinese and Japanese are also renowned for having many homonyms, even if
one demands that two Chinese homonyms have the same tone, but my knowledge
of both languages is too sketchy for me to give examples without a
dictionary.
Yep, in Chinese at least homonyms abound, as a result of which, the Chinese
are very fond of puns. My teacher once recited a story in which each word
was pronounced "shi"; something about stone lions, I recall. It had something
like 100 characters in all (One couldn't understand it when spoken, only when
written). My handy dictionary lists 16 different characters pronounced "shi"
in the first tone, 15 in the second, 7 in the third and (get this) \41/ in the
fourth, plus two in neutral tone. Many characters have multiple entries
(different meanings for the same character).
Bill Jefferys 8-%
Astronomy Dept, University of Texas, Austin TX 78712 (Snail)
ihnp4!kpno!utastro!bill (uucp)
utastro!bill@utexas-11 (ARPA)jsq@ut-sally.UUCP (09/18/83)
About the only false homonym that annoys me more than to for too
(ignoring your for you're and it's for its) is do for due.
--
John Quarterman, CS Dept., University of Texas, Austin, Texas
{ihnp4,ut-ngp}!ut-sally!jsq, jsq@ut-sally.ARPA (formerly jsq@utexas-780.ARPA)dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (09/19/83)
I remember learning in Latin:
cum eo eo eo
"with him I go there".
Eo is (1) the ablative of "is", meaning "he"; (2) the first person
singular present indicative of "ire", meaning, "I go"; and (3) "there"
when used to indicate direction to (i.e., "thither").
[How's that? And I didn't even open up a Latin book!]
Incidentally, the -ence and -ither forms have almost died out of
English, except for specific usages.
from [at] to
==================
hence here hither
whence where whither
thence there thither
("I come from Florence." "Oh, what's it like in Florere?" "Very nice."
"I think I shall go Florither.")
Digressing even further, Hebrew not only has words for "whither" and "hither",
but can affix the suffix -ah to indicate direction, to almost any place
name or direction. (This is ancient Hebrew; modern Hebrew has only retained
a few of the forms.)
Dave Sherman
--
{cornell,decvax,floyd,ihnp4,linus,utzoo,uw-beaver,watmath}!utcsrgv!lsuc!dave