Re: Next word: "key"

Herman Miller wrote:

>How does one word end up with so many meanings? You've got the metal
>thing that you turn to operate a lock. "Key" has other meanings
>associated with secrets, answers, and so on, which could be related to
>the idea of opening a lock. Then there's a lever or switch on a
>keyboard, which can trigger a musical note to play or a letter to appear
>on your screen. Not to mention the different sorts of levers on wind
>instruments that cover or uncover holes to produce different musical
>notes. And then there's the tonal center of a piece of music, like the
>"key of C minor". And what about those islands in the south of Florida?
Another good lexicon-builder with a lot of meanings is "set".
This comes from my beat-up 1990 Guinness Book of Records (which had a
section on language):

"Most Meanings - The most over-worked word in English is the word _set_
which has 58 noun uses, 126 verbal uses and ten as a participial adjective."

They might have been a bit generous with what counts as a seperate "use",
but there are a lot.

some nouns:
group of things sold etc. together - "they come as a set"
apparatus/machine - "TV set"
movie/television stage
group of games in a tennis match
group of reps in an exercise
performance at a concert (as length or number of songs)

some verbs:
place/put - "set something down"
fix, attach - "set a diamond"
adjust - "set your watch"
arrange - "set a sequence/order"
harden, solidify self - "the glue sets"
go down over the horizon - "the sun sets"
prepare - "set a trap"
point something in a direction - "set a course"
decide on - "set a date, set terms"
cause to be - "set loose, set on fire, set spinning"

M

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