Okay, but is there a word that is a personal sort of Synecdoche? a word that conjures up a meaning, that perhaps is related to the actually meaning, but goes beyond, and has a personal treasure trove.
for me "jelly" rememind me of the summer spent in ireland, an learning a new vocabulary...
for bingley, the same word conjures up a world of stange people, eating even stranger food.. I suspect, that now days, he mentally translates "jelly", when he comes across it in a US english article, to "Jam"-- and might think "cream cheese and jelly" to be an odd combination, but but at least does not think it refers to some sort of dairy and gelatin dessert. it might be translated as "creme fraise and preserves, served on toast points" he might not even be put off.
Haven't you come across a word, that you either mis understood, or that started you down a path that lead to so much more? Max's thread on diphthongs is doing that now.. it is exploring language, geography, history, culture-- commonalities, and differernce in the whole of the south pacific!
Will you ever use the word diphthongs again, with out thinking about the Maaori language, and how it relates to the other languages in the area? hasn't diphthong become a word for us, that suggest more than a combination of vowel sounds?
