A Thought

Wednesday, October 21, 2009
The words for "I" and "I am not" are the same in Hebrew. Exactly the same letters, just different vowels, and most people don't write the vowels anyway. Both words can be spelled "אני".

A homograph is a word that looks the same as another word but has a different meaning. My favorite is wind and wind or windy and windy. How did those two things come to be spelled the same way? When left to your own devices, with no context, does the word "windy" automatically mean blustery or twisted? How about wind? Left! That's another one!

A capitonym is a word whose meaning changes depending on whether or not it is capitalized. Like Polish or polish or like Pole and pole. What is is with the Polish that their descriptive words are also random other words in English?

There is no point to this other than that sometimes language blows my mind.

0 Responses to 'A Thought'

Search This Blog

Contact Me

Written Pyramids is a blog written by a journalist living and working in Washington D.C.

I have left my real name off of the blog so as not to imply that the blog is somehow linked with the journalism I get paid to do. (Still, I never write about my beat on this blog, and rarely express opinions about the day's news regardless of its relationship to my beat).

I would love to hear from you. If you want to contact me directly rather than leaving a comment here, I can be reached at WrittenPyramids@gmail.com.

Blog Archive

Books pyramid image originally from the British website, Explore Writing.