|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 218
enthusiast
|
enthusiast
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 218 |
Question for ya, Bingley. Given the roots of the three terms you share (homo, phone, graph, and nym), I wonder if a homophone must have different spelling and if a homograph must have a different spelling.
If homophone means "same sound," then words that sound identical are homophones regardless of whether the spellings are identical or not. Similarly, words that are spelled the same regardless of whether the pronunciations are different are homographs.
Am I being too inclusive?
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
If one goes by etymology alone, then the terms could be more inclusive, as Brandon suggests, but then you would lose two perfectly good and much needed terms and not have anything to replace them with. I suppose you could call them heterophones and heterographs if you wanted but they would be open to over-inclusiveness as well.
Bingley
Bingley
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819
Pooh-Bah
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819 |
Is there a -nym for words that are a different word when read backwards, like "dog" and "god," or "pot" and "top"? What's the longest that you know?
|
|
|
|
Anonymous
Unregistered
|
Anonymous
Unregistered
|
In reply to:
Is there a -nym for words that are a different word when read backwards, like "dog" and "god," or "pot" and "top"? What's the longest that you know?
my latest, greatest favoritist word site (well, besides this one) offers the simple term "reversal", and says that D-E-S-S-E-R-T-S / S-T-R-E-S-S-E-D is the longest such phenomenon.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 508
addict
|
addict
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 508 |
my latest, greatest favoritist word site Share, please, Caradea! Always looking for new word sites!
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,373
Members9,182
|
Most Online3,341 Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
0 members (),
155
guests, and
1
robot. |
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
|