Language desk
< September 28	<< Aug \| September \| Oct >>	Current desk >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

September 29

Homophones or homonyms

Technically, words with the same sound but different spellings are called homophones. But children's media, such as Reader Rabbit 2, more commonly calls them homonyms. Why?? Georgia guy (talk) 17:51, 29 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

See the lead of Homonym, especially the second paragraph. Deor (talk) 18:04, 29 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

When I was a child in school, decades ago, we were taught "homonym" as the word for homophones. I still use it that way. I don't believe we ever talked about in school about there being such a thing as homographs. Perhaps this is still standard pedagogy in some places although linguists' preference for the more precise term, and Reader Rabbit 2 goes along. --76.69.116.4 (talk) 08:34, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

When I was at school we used to joke that a homophone was what a homo would use to call his 'friend'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.59.100.28 (talk) 09:37, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

And you haven't matured enough since then to figure out that repeating bigoted jokes isn't a smart thing to do? Temerarius (talk) 01:54, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This 45 year old was taught the difference in elementary school. Homonym = same spelling, homophone = same sound. Khajidha (talk) 11:44, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That's not quite right: Homograph = same spelling, homophone= same sound, homonym = same spelling and sound. -- Q Chris (talk) 13:07, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just saying what I was taught. I don't remember "homograph" at all. --Khajidha (talk) 15:11, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The first sentence of the article says homonyms, broadly speaking, "are words which sound alike or are spelled alike, but have different meanings." To, too and two are homonyms by this general definition. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:16, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, a "homonym" is just the same word applied to different things. Originally spelling had nothing to do with it, because spelling was fluid and homonyms could usually be spelled the same by someone. So, "robin" in the UK and "robin" in the US are homonyms because they refer to different birds. Robert Sr and Robert Jr are homonyms, as both men are named "Robert". "Grammar" meaning a grammar book and "grammar" meaning the grammar of a language are homonyms, same word applied to different things. The issue that came in later was whether the "same" word meant that they had to be cognate. — kwami (talk) 16:47, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Kwamikagami appears to consider that if a word has multiple senses then they are homonyms. I don't think that's correct. Dictionaries list "robin" as one word with two or more senses. Similarly "Robert" is one name. Homonyms have to be different words. --76.69.116.4 (talk) 07:46, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That's just one sense. The word "homonym" is used in different ways in different contexts. See wikt:homonym. The first definition in the OED is "The same name or word used to denote different things." Thus "homonym" is a homonym. Dbfirs 08:02, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Linguists will never be able to rigorously define any concept if it first requires them to formalise a definition of what a "word" is, much less what constitutes a "different thing". – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 09:13, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

When describing Chinese in English, words are typically considered homonyms if they're written with different characters, despite being merely different uses of the same thing. Usage can be inconsistent. I avoid the word altogether and just say homophone if that's what I mean. — kwami (talk) 21:31, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

More broadly speaking, see Lie-to-children. It's a standard line of pedagogy to simplify things, especially at younger ages, so that some degree of understanding will be imparted, hopefully to be refined/corrected as the student progresses. Is it more important for the child to understand the different terms or is it more important to understand the basic concept of looking/sounding alike, but being distinct in some way? Keep in mind that there a multitude of such decisions to be made, even just restricting ourselves to English class. Matt Deres (talk) 13:01, 2 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sort of, but it isn't really a pedagogical situation in the sense of a "lie-to-children", which is a valid method of teaching a simpler, less-detailed version of something as a means of instructional scaffolding so that the person is better able to learn the more precise details later. The "lie to children" method of teaching is best exemplified in the way we teach Newtonian mechanics before we teach more advanced, and more accurate, physics theories like quantum mechanics or general relativity. While QM or GR are more accurate (and thus for a given meaning of the word "correct", more "correct" than Newtonian physics), a student may not be yet intellectually prepared with enough background information to learn the more advanced theories, so the simpler (and less accurate) theories are taught first. In this case, the main issue is the ambiguity of language itself, not of a pedagogical method of simplifying complex concepts. In the case of the word "homonym", there are multiple valid uses of the term, some of which may be contradictory depending on the context they are used in. This is not unique to this word, most words have multiple shades of meaning where the context of usage (not just grammatical context, but also social context, i.e. when and where and by whom the word is used) is necessary to determine the exact sense meant. Specifically to the word "homonym" at the most basic level, the word means "two words with some kind of sameness". For example, Oxford defines homonym as Each of two or more words having the same spelling or pronunciation but different meanings and origins. If a more precise meaning is needed, for example distinguishing between two words that are spelled the same, but pronounced differently ("wind" as in blown air or "wind" as in to twist) OR distinguishing between two words that are spelled differently, but pronounced the same ("meat" as in flesh or "meet" as in to rendez-vous) OR distinguishing between two words that share common spellings and pronunciations but mean different things ("fair" as in a festival or "fair" as in just) then we can come up with additional words like homograph or homophone, and we can even restrict or modify the prior meaning of "homonym" to only mean some of these, while creating a new term to refer to the others. All of these possibilities happen all the time with language, which is why it can be messy to try to decode these things, ESPECIALLY when presented out of context. To know what a word means, you'd need to see how it is used, both its grammatical context (what words are used around it) AND its social context (who is doing the speaking and who is the audience) to understand which shade of meaning is meant. --Jayron 32 16:02, 2 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'll grant the sort of. I guess my POV is that teachers could well be aware of the distinction betwen homographs and homophones and are instead deliberately choosing to lump those together as homonyms to get across the more basic point that words that seem similar may in fact not have the same meaning. I'd propose that a similar situation occurs when metaphor is taught. Subtypes like metonymy or synecdoche are just lumped in there. I do understand that there is a distinction between ignoring more complex concepts (your physics example) and failing to distinguish subtypes (my POV of the homonym and metaphor examples), but I'd still consider them similar enough strategies to both qualify as lie-to-children. In both cases, the simplified version is "good enough" to promote understanding and illustrate basic concepts while remaining vague about the specifics. But YMMV. Matt Deres (talk) 19:13, 3 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]