Here's a little shout out to 3. This was taken at the QC airport last week as she was headed back to Beantown. By making her return on Saturday, she avoided the big rush (and some iffy weather), on Sunday.We do need to make a commitment to take some family pics over Christmas. Maybe at Chunkee Cheese? The Canon has a timer so we can all get into the picture this year.
I've had this thought recently about words with more than one distinct meaning. You run into the situation in crosswords quite a bit when a good author wants you to think outside the box. Here are a few examples of what I mean:
1. Mean: as in, "She is being mean", and "I really mean it".
2. Deck: A deck of cards. "Let's eat on the deck".
3. Milk: A glass of milk. "He knows how to milk an injury".
4. Board. The school board. A board fence.
5. Base. An Air Force base. The base of a column.
6. Blue. The blue sky. "How blue am I".
7. Still. A whiskey still. "He loves her still".
8. Match. A tennis match. "He lit the fire with a match".
9. Club. A tennis club. "He hit the ball with a club".
10. Flag. A flag is a banner. "At mile 18 she began to flag".
These are called homonyms, since they are spelled the same way but can have different meanings. (This is in contrast to homophones which are words that sound the same but are spelled differently.) So this is not exactly particularly insightful or all that meaningful, but to an amateur linguist, it is at least mildly interesting. It can get a little better when the word has meaning(s) as both a noun and a verb. See Wikipedia under homonyms if you want more education.
Today is the anniv
ersary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. I've never studied much on the facts and history associated with the Japanese attack, but from the Wikipedia main page on the topic, there's been a huge amount written about the event over the years. One theory that has been widely debated is that FDR was actually aware that the attack was imminent, but he did not mobilize defenses in order to bring public support behind a declaration of war. The archives on this theory are located on a grassy knoll in Dallas.Hope everyone has a great week.
BCOT
2 comments:
homonyms are extremely difficult to teach english language learners. for example, the subordinating conjunction 'while'. i do my homework while watching tv. some apples are green, while others are red. or 'as'. i waved as i drove by. as she hates math, she seldom does her homework. explaining the separate uses and meanings is tricky!!!
on the linguistics note, i had to take a course in my graduate program at the u and it was miserable. you really need to be interested in it to follow along. we're talking about listening to tapes to distinguish sounds. it was a night class on wednesdays and i rarely made it back after the break.
Martha said:
Greg Maddux graduated from high school in LV and lives here now...someone you actually see around town.
I went to a career workshop here and the presenter cautioned us that when a student says they plan to pitch in the major leagues or be a entertainer, you can feel foolish in later years when you tell them that it's a good idea to have a back up plan, like she told Maddux.
It'll be interesting to see what he does in retirement. Hope he has a clearer picture than Brett Farve.
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