Heteronyms…
Most people probably remember that homonyms are words that have the same sound and spelling but have different meaning (”fair” means reasonable and also refers to a carnival). However, heteronyms — which I certainly don’t remember being covered in English 101 — also differ in pronunciation.
Heteronyms are sometimes used in puzzles. Yesterday I noticed a puzzler someone had written on a whiteboard in my office asking passersby, “What one English word is pronounced differently when the first letter is capitalized?” Of course, like many word puzzles, there is more than one answer: polish vs Polish, august vs August, ares vs Ares, etc. If you expand the search to include foreign and proper names used in English, you also get degas vs painter Degas, job vs biblical Job, lima vs Peru’s Lima, male vs Maldives’ Male, nice vs France’s Nice, rainier vs Mt. Rainier, said vs Egyptian port Said, and many more.
One of my favorite uses of heteronyms in popular culture was from an old episode of the BBC’s “Yes, Minister”. When cabinet minister Jim Hacker decided to trash a complaint that he received, he used a euphemism for a garbage can and labeled the complaint with “Round Objects”. Later in the episode, civil servant Humphrey commented on the complaint via Bernard, asking “Who is Round and to what does he object?”
The plastic surgeon will implant the second implant in the flat-chested Maria.- Maria now attributes the great look of her new attributes to the brilliant plastic surgeon.
- So far, Maria has found no one to contest her first place position in the nicest-fake-bøøbš contest. Yum!
- Frank the drug dealer tried to addict others, but soon became an addict himself.
- I suspect that the jury’s job was to deliberate on the suspect’s fate with deliberate caution.
- The town counsel felt that the decision to appropriate Frank’s meth lab was appropriate.
- When Alex fell off the roof again, it only served to compound the injury of his existing compound fracture.
- Jennifer wound a compress around Alex’s leg to compress his reopened wound.
“Round objects” is one of my favorites, too, although I didn’t realize it was a heteronym.
I also don’t recall for sure which series it was in, but if it was “Yes, Minister” than Hacker had not yet failed upwards to the PM job.
The word “round” is a homonym. Since “objects” is pronounced differently based on usage, it is a heteronym.
An oops. Jim’s title has been reduced.
Ok, there’s gotta be some joke to make about mixing the homo- and hetero- there, but I haven’t had my morning coffee yet aqnd just can’t come up with it. (And since I don’t drink coffee, I suppose it’s doubtful I will…)