Re: Keeping Track of Ambiguity in your Conlang?

On Sat, 31 Aug 2002 12:12, Roger Mills wrote:
> Tom Wier wrote:
> >Quoting bnathyuw <bnathyuw@...>:
> >>  --- Roberto Suarez Soto <ask4it@...> wrote: > On
> >>
> >> Aug/30/2002, Amanda Babcock wrote:
> >> >         And there's also the homonyms that you can't
> >> > tell the difference
> >> > out of context: in spanish, "era" (somewhat archaic
> >> > form to call the
> >> > land outside a farm or country house) and "era"
> >> > (singular third or first
> >> > person of the imperfect past tense of "to be") are
> >> > exactly pronounced
> >> > the same, to my knowledge.
> >>
> >> of course, english has the wonderful pairing 'cleave'
> >> and 'cleave'
>
> Isn't the sense cleave = 'stick to' nowadays pretty much restricted to the
> KJV and formal marriage ceremony? A man shall cleave unto his
> wife........etc.
Well, the other sense is transitive - and a man cleaving his wife and vice
versa is horror-movie stuff.

>
> >> one means 'to cling to, be firmly attached to'
> >> the other means 'to split, divide'
> >
> >In my experience these 'two' words are in fact never
> >used in opposition to one another.  People either use
> >one or the other, but not both.  This would make it
> >like the difference between American 'to table'
> >(to remove from consideration) and British 'to table'
> >(to put into consideration)
> >
> >> ( another pairing i've seen mentioned is 'dust'
> >> meaning to rid of dust and 'dust' meaning to sprinkle
> >> with dust, but at least these come from the same root )
> >
> >I do think this is used by everyone, although the first
> >meaning is probably the more common one.
>
> In my life, at least, 'to dust (sprinkle with....)' is mainly restricted to
> the kitchen--
> "Dust the cutlets with flour......", Dust with powdered sugar"   I can't
> imagine dusting something with real dust-----though given my housekeeping
> habits it could happen....
Heard of crop-dusting?  From aircraft?

Wesley Parish
--
Mau e ki, "He aha te mea nui?"
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku e ki, "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata."
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."