Conference thebay::joyoflex

    homographs

    One obsolescent homograph is "unionized."
    
    If you're in labor-management negotiations, it means "some work
    situation where (at least) blue-collar workers are members of a
    union."
    
    If you're a chemist, it means "a chemical sample (usually liquid)
    that contains no ions."
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

  Lead - the element Pb

  Lead - the converse of follow


  JP

    read - the present tense of the verb describing the perusal of
    this notefile.

    read - the past tense of the verb describing the perusal of
    this notefile.

    							Ann B.

Record - To transcribe

Record - Subdivision of a file

    
Invalid - Not valid

Invalid - One who is weak or sickly.

	The following pair is questionable because the second entry should
	technically have a diacritical mark over the final "e", but
	frequently does not (not everyone has a "Compose" key ;-).
                                                          
Resume - To continue where one left off

Resume - Ones job history

	Tom

    I'm trying to think of a THREE-way homograph, i.e. THREE different
    valid pronunciation for the same spelling.
    
    Umm...
    
    Umm...
    
    Ummm...
    
    
    I can't think of any.  Can you ?
    
    /Eric

    DECtalk had to learn to deal with literally hundreds of these
    special-case pronunciations.  There's even a rule in English that
    explains why and how they occur.  (Although, like every rule in
    English, there are exceptions.)
    
    Noun forms of the word have stress on the first syllable.  Verb
    forms stress the last syllable.  Thus, COMpress is a dressing, while
    comPRESS is to squeeze.  REcord, reCORD...

I am reminded of an Ellery Queen short story of several years back. A 
murdered man left a dying clue, by writing the word "march" in blood. As 
among the suspects there was a family name "March" and a band-leader who
specialized in marches, the question arose as to how the word was
capitalized. Surprise! It was "MArch", pointing to the local Master of
Architecture as the villain. 

When presenting DECtalk, I used to give several examples of words
and phrases with more than one pronunication:

"I read poetry on Tuesday."		Last Tuesday or every Tuesday?

"This is the first unionized chemical plant in Massachusetts."
					Type of chemical or type of labor?

"Bake 10-15 minutes."			Between ten and fifteen or minus five?

My favorite, though, was the chemical in aspirin (excuse the misspelling):
acetylsalycilic acid can be pronounced in two ways, but one of them
can't be made, given the laws of chemistry.

The interesting thing about the first two examples is that you can't choose
the correct pronunciation even if you "understand" the sentence, as the
sentence itself can be understood in more than one way.

Martin.

    re: .9  Wonderful examples, particularly because "common" usage
    makes it perfectly obvious which meaning is "intended" upon the
    first reading, then your question yanks the rug out from under said
    "common" usage.
    
    If you read poetry every Tuesday, that's interesting; if you read
    it last Tuesday - who cares!
    
    Another close shop - outrageous!  It's chemistry - who would know!
    
    ...
    

    minute -- sixty seconds or very small
    
    
    				-- edp

     Someone beat me to the accent shift between nouns and verbs, but 
here's an itneresting shift between a noun and an adjective:

	animate - adj.  living, alive
	animate - verb  to cause to come to life

    If you stand in a cold wind, you will wind up with frostbite.
    
    The wound was wound with gauze.
    
    It's close to 5:00.  It's time to close up shop and go home.
    
    	Tom

    bow		the face of a ship, a fiddlestick
    content	satisfied, something within
    contract	an agreement, to shorten
    converse	to talk, opposite
    desert	a dry place with camels, to leave without leave
    entrance	a passage in, to fill with wonder
    finish	superb, to put on the back burner
    fount	a spring, a font
    gill	a thingy on a fish, 1/4 pint
    hallow	to worship, to shout
    lower	to degrade, to frown
    present	now, to give
    river	one who rives, an open-ended wet trench
    row		a laid back member of a matrix, an unrest
    tower	a place to look down from, one who tows
    wind	fidgety air, to wrap around

    Re .14:  Please could you explain "finish"?  I don't understand
    either definition - the only finish I know is "to complete".

    
    Re .15
    
    One of the primary definitions of the word "finish" is, indeed,
    "to bring to an end."  I put down a back-handed definition as in:

        "Yessir, Boss. I will finish this software project on Friday!"

    The other definition is: "somewhat fine."   The semantic origin of
    the word is "fine" + suffix "-ish," according to the  _Longman's
    Dictionary of American English_, Longman Inc., N.Y.   I did not
    find an entry for this definition in the OED.   I wonder if this is
    a case of discord between Queens' English (spoken in a borough of
    New York City) and King's English.
    
    
    

    re .16:
    
    kinda-like "three-ish"
                                                   
                  /
                 (  ___
                  ) ///
                 /
    

    Or how about a flounder whose body resembles the 6th letter of the
    alphabet?

    
    astonish	an Aston Martin-like car, a reaction to its price
    assail	to assault (cf. .17, .18), a rectalgia
    
    8^)

    
    
    re .15  re.16
    
    From Finland?

    counterfeit five dollar bill ?
    

    bass	a fiddle extraordinaire, a sushi fish
    moped	depressed, a motorized bicycle
    incense	fragrance, to anger
    tear	a good-bye product, to pull apart
    thou	you, a thousand
    tier	a layer or level, one who ties
    lather	micro-bubbles, one who lathe
    interact	to have influence, an interlude
    intern	a doctoret, to limit freedom
    intimate	close, to suggest

I once had a friend whose job was the organization of work for coders 
working on the implementation of Linear Programming tools. He said his job 
description included "linear programming programming programming".

      Recreation   Something one does for fun
      Recreation   When a theatrical performance is done again (like
                   years later)
      
      Dave C.

    primate  ranking (arch)bishop
    primate  highest order of mammals
    
    (In America, they are often pronounced the same by newscasters.)
    
    primer   coat of paint (and other meanings)
    primer   elementary book
    
    (In Britain, these are pronounced the same, according to my
    dicitonary.)
    
  --Simon
    

>    primer   coat of paint (and other meanings)
>    primer   elementary book
>    
>    (In Britain, these are pronounced the same, according to my
>    dicitonary.)

    So, how do YOU pronounce them?
    
    Jeff (intrigued Britisher)

    re .26:
    
    "primer" = "coat of paintoid" =< "PRIME-er"
    
    "primer" = "elementary [introductory] book = "PRIM-er"
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    Re: .26
    
    Primer as an elementary book is pronounced with a short 'i' as in
    _prim_ (rhymes with trim).  [The usual convention for implying a
    short 'i' would be to double the following consonant, but for some
    reason it is not done in this case.  i.e. shimmer, dimmer, simmer, etc.]
    
    Primer as a base coat of paint is pronounced with a long 'i' as
    in _prime_ (rhymes with _time_). 

    How quaint. :-)

    The prim school teacher uses a primer, while the primary painter 
     uses a primer.  (or does the lead painter use lead paint?) 
    
    	Rick
    	Merrill
    

    Re: .24
    
    To avoid misunderstanding, one should write "re-creation," with
    the hyphen, to mean another creation.
    
    In the same way, if there were a procedure that required a manager
    to sign his or her name again, we wouldn't want to write "the manager
    should resign."  Then again...
    
    Bernie

    I'm still intrigued by this primer business.  I wonder when the
    pronunciation first got "corrupted" (quotes for appeasement purposes),
    and more to the point, how.  I understand a "primer" to be a book
    that is used to prime students on the basics of a subject (in the
    same way a pump is primed), and as such has an identical derivation
    to paint primer.
    
    Jeff.

    When you "prime students" that is a metaphor that transforms
    students into virtual pumps!  But the metaphor is a good one because
    the prim'er IS the prime'r material.  
    
    A prime'r is also an explosive used to start a larger explosion.
    
    (You could have used quotes in your <topic> because it should read
     "Prim and Proper.")
    
    The derivation may be prim'er from Latin `primas' (leader) and
    prime'r from Latin `primarius' (first).
    
    	Rick
    	Merrill
    
    	

    Re: primer
    
    Personally, I pronounce both words as PRIME-er with the long i.
    But then again I am a liberal when it comes to pronuciation.
    

>    The derivation may be prim'er from Latin `primas' (leader) and
>    prime'r from Latin `primarius' (first).

Latin had uniform pronounciation rules, and so all the "i"'s in primas 
and primarius would sound the same.  I don't think this solves the 
mystery of why we have a long-"i" primer and a short-"i" primer in 
contravention to the common spelling rules that would require the latter 
to be spelt "primmer."

Back when I was getting the low-down on Webster and his dictionary (some 
other note) I remember being taught that primer (the book) was 
pronounced that way as an affectation brought across the waves from 
England (where pronounciation marks social strata.)  The colonists
wanted to seem sophisticated, and so picked up the pronounciation.
Oddly, my Anglophile school -- which always backed spelling color as
"colour" and favor as "favour" -- warned us to pronounce primer with the
long "i" no matter how it was used. (Which I do to this very day -- 
partly bacause it's "right", partly because it causes such arguments. 
Maybe we should have a note "Words you mispronounce because it's fun.") 

					>>>==>PStJTT

    Primer isn't spelled primmer, because primmer (more prim) already
    is.
    							Ann B.

    I always pronounce it with a long "i."  This word is obviously a
    malaphone. :-)
    
    
    John M.

                                          

    Prim'er books lead a person into a subject, and they are often found
    in one's first or Pri'mary school.

    Re .11:
    
>   minute -- sixty seconds or very small
    
    I always thought that New Englanders referred to them as "Minute
    Men" because they were Small Farmers ...

    Re: .11 & .39
    
    > "Minute Men"
    
    And I thought that's what they were called by their wives.
    

    re .12: I have always heard both "animate"s pronounced more or less
    the ame in the UK with regard to accentuation; but with the slight
    exception of something sounding like "animat".
    
    re .25: yes we pronounce both "primate"s the same; and "primer".
    
    Given that the unit(s) of volume got somewhat altered on the trip
    across the pons, it is hardly surprising that a few punctuations
    did as well.
    
    Richard De Morgan.

>    Given that the unit(s) of volume got somewhat altered on the trip
>    across the pons, it is hardly surprising that a few punctuations
>    did as well.

    Is that the Siberian land bridge, or have they built a bridge
    across the Atlantic that I hadn't heard about?
    
	-Neil

>>    Given that the unit(s) of volume got somewhat altered on the trip
>>    across the pons, it is hardly surprising that a few punctuations
>>    did as well.

>    Is that the Siberian land bridge, or have they built a bridge
>    across the Atlantic that I hadn't heard about?
 
You realize, of course, that this joke works only if one has learned
Latin?  For me, it's a perfect justification for the continuation of
Latin in schools.

					andrew   

    Here are some more "heteronyms" (words having a different sound and meaning
    from another, but the same spelling) and "homographs" (words of the same
    written form as another but of different origin and meaning, whether
    pronounced the same way or not).

    axes - large hatchets, central lines
    buffet - (v) strike against, (n) an informal meal
    evening - (n) night, (v) making level
    homer - home run, 10 ephahs
    number - (n) numeral, (adv) less sensitive
    patent - (n) a grant for an invention, (adj) obvious (Amer vs Brit?)
    peaked - having a peak, sickly
    proceeds - (n) profits, (v) moves forward
    putting - placing (generally), attempting to "place" a golf ball in a hole
    sewer - stitcher, waste conduit
    skied - schussed, achieved much altitude
    slaver - (n) slave dealer, (v) slobber
    slough - (n) swamp, (v) discard
    sow - (n) female pig, (v) scatter
    supply - (n) inventory, (adv) in a flexible manner

    If you want to find more, just browse through your OED and look for two
    entries for the same word, e.g. "desert 1" and "desert 2".  These are
    homographs.  If the pronunciation is different, I guess they are also
    heteronyms.

    I can hardly believe we're at .45 and haven't seen these yet:
    
    affect	v. to have an effect upon;	n. emotional content
    effect	v. to bring about;		n. result, alteration
    
    Julie

>    affect  	v. to have an effect upon;  	n. emotional content;

Don't forget   v.t. to pretend
					>>>==>PStJTT

    If we are allowing case changes, there is august and August.
    
    
    				-- edp

    Re .47:
    
    Well, August was named after Caesar Augustus (just as July was named
    after Caesar Julius), so "august" and "August" come from the same
    root.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    Then there's:
    
    JOYOFLEX
    
    which can mean either a "notefile," or a piece of erotic apparatus.
    :-)
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    Here are a few more:
    
    advocate	a proponent;  what a proponent does
    arithmetic	a branch of math;  related to that branch of math
    console	a type of computer terminal;  to offer simpathy
    contract	a legal document;  to get a disease
    deliberate	on purpose;  to think about
    do		act;  as in "do re me fa sol la ti do" (sp?)
    does	third person singular of "do";  plural of female deer
    dove	a bird;  past tense of dive
    house	a building;  to be the home of
    live	to breath, eat, etc.;  not dead
    		("The Who: Live at Leeds" had me confused for years.)
    object	a thing;  protest
    project	task or job;  to show at a distance
    reject	something not acceptable;  to discard a reject
    resign	to quit;  to sign again
    subject	topic;  to force on someone
    tarry	to wait;  covered with tar
    windy	curvy;  breeze
    
    I have never tried to come up with clear, concise definitions for words
    before.  Its tough!  It gives me a new appreciation for my dictionary.
    
    Chris

    Re .50:
>   dove	a bird;  past tense of dive

    Re: .-1, .-2
    
    My office edition of the American Heritage Dictionary lists:
    
         dive v. dived or dove, dived, diving. ...
    
    Dan

    Re: .51  Well, if our cousins allow us `spelt', it's only fair we
    allow them `dove' :-)
    
    Jeff.

      Re .50
      
      >    console	a type of computer terminal;  to offer simpathy

      A type of computer terminal?  I'd say it's more like a particular
      use of a computer terminal.   How about a type of television set?
      
      Dave C.

    Re .53 (Jeff):
    
    Couldn't "dove," as past tense of "dive," mean "a formerly sleazy
    bar that has been renovated"? :-)
    
    Re .50 (Dave):
    
    There were also console radios (for us old-timers), console
    phonographs, and the loke.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    Re .52:

>   My office edition of the American Heritage Dictionary lists:
>    
>        dive v. dived or dove, dived, diving. ...

    Well, that's what you get for relying on a crummy dictionary ....

    ... American Heritage has been aspersed more than once in this 
    notes file.

    > ... American Heritage has been aspersed more than once in this 
    > notes file.

    Do I detect a verbification, or are you claiming cousinhood?
    
    Jeff. :-)

    re .56:
    
    Not only have verbed "aspersion," but you have commited an informal
    fallicy. Just because *some* people think it's a crummy dictionary
    doesn't mean that it is. That's an argumentum ad hominem (or perhaps
    more properly ad libris [1]) with an implicit appeal to an unnamed
    authority. 
    
    	Jon

    [1] I'm not sure if I've declined this properly, but the point is still
    the same. 

   Re: last reply
   
   NIT ALERT!
   
   Is fallicy a cross between fallacy and policy?  Just wondering...
   
   
   
   							Terza

>   [1] I'm not sure if I've declined this properly, but the point is still
>   the same. 

Cheeese Jon! if you decline, who will do it? ;-}

    Re .55
    
>>    There were also console radios (for us old-timers), console
>>    phonographs, and the loke.
    
    At first I thought "loke" was the past tense of "like" but then
    I realized that you were using it as a noun ["the loke."].  But
    what exactly is it?  A kind of combined console radio/phonograph
    with decorative tailfins?
    
    Dan

    re .59,.60:
    
    Mea culpa. That's what I get for typing when I should be packing...
    
    	Jon

    Re .61 (Dan):
    
    >At first I thought "loke" was the past tense of "like" but then
    >I realized that you were using it as a noun ["the loke."].  But
    >what exactly is it?
     
    Gosh -- I thought that was obvious.  "Loke" is short for "locution,"
    naturally, referring to that style of speaking where an adjective
    slowly becomes a noun, out of sloppy usage.  Naturally, there are
    those who just might entertain the thought that "loke" is a typo
    for "like" on my part, but I'm gratified that you have successfully
    disabused them of that idea.           
    
    But why the spelling?  If it were "locu," it would sound too much
    like "loco," cowboy-talk (or Spanish) for "crazy."  If it were spelled
    (or "spelt") "loc," it might be pronounced like those things used
    to keep doors closed against unwanted intruders.  If it were spelled
    "loce," it might be procounced with a soft "c," and that would never
    do.  Hence the spelling.
    
>                     -< confused in Taxachusetts >-
    ... Who isn't? :-)
                            
    Steve Kallis, Jr.    

    Re .57 and .58:
    
>   Do I detect a verbification, or are you claiming cousinhood?

    If you mean what I think you mean ... no, I don't need to claim
    cousinhood -- I am, in fact, British by birth and American by 
    naturalization, and hold current passports for both countries.
    
>   Just because some people think it is a crummy dictionary doesn't
>   mean that it is.
    
    No, I agree. Maybe I should have put my opinion more strongly: I 
    personally have a very poor opinion of the American Heritage dictionary, 
    a view that has -- as I said -- been expressed by others in this conference.
    In my case I have both the American Heritage and Webster's New
    Collegiate in the office, and have relegated AH to an obscure shelf
    because I find it to be of dubious value in comparison with Webster's;
    my dislike is probably based on the number of barbarous neologisms
    which AH foists on its unsuspecting users.

    A person who would have "dove", in my estimation would also have been happy 
    to have "slud into third base", to borrow the (in)famous phrase.
    
    Finally: mea culpa -- I am hoist with my own petard. According to
    Webster's I have been using the word asperse (a perfectly good verb,
    according to Webster's) wrongly for many years. I always thought
    it meant simply to express an adverse opinion of someone/something.
    
    It turns out that the dictionary meaning (one of them ...) is "to
    attack with evil reports or false or injurious charges; to malign"
    -- which is certainly not what I intended to convey.

    In conclusion: I hope that all you word-freaks out there had an enjoyable 
    intercalary day yesterday. (No, not an adjectivification ...)

    JimH  :^)

    re .58 (Jon)
    
>            more properly ad libris [1]) with an implicit appeal to an unnamed
>    authority. 
>    [...]
>    [1] I'm not sure if I've declined this properly, but the point is still
>    the same. 

    It would be "ad librum" or "ad libros".
    "Ad libris" is not possible; perhaps there's some confusion with
    "ex libris".
    
    	roger

    Thank you, Roger. My confusion comes from the fact that it's been a
    decade since I took Latin. 
    
    	Jon

    executor   --   one disposes of the estate after the other creates it
    produce    --   noun vs. verb
    analyses   --   noun (plural) vs. verb (singular)
    reset      --   verb vs. verb (vs. adjective?)
    preset     --   verb vs. adjective (vs. common-usage noun)
    shower     --   noun vs. noun (vs. verb)
    bow        --   noun vs. noun AND verb vs. verb
        
    re .-??  The noun doesn't always have the accent earlier than the
    verb; for example "repair" does not suit this topic.  Neither does
    "accent".