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| Somewhere in time... |
I'm participating in Fandango's Flashback Friday today with a post from my old WP blog from June 26, 2011. I found it on the Wayback Machine. The internal link is no longer available.
Homonymy
My daughter and I were noodling on love and relationships, how they mean different things to different people, and how it can be hard to settle on a definition that remains solid over time. During the discussion, I thought of this post at Gekko’s and said, “Some consider a relationship to be a vessel and love fills it up. Well, ideally love would fill it. The vessel might crack and love spills out. Maybe it can be repaired. Or maybe something else fills it up. “
My daughter said, “You mean a blood vessel, like to the heart?”
I laughed, “No!”
“A ship?”
“No, no. A goblet. A vase. How interesting you came up with the other possibilities.”
Isn’t it though?
That is funny. People can take words and give many meanings to them and that's what makes conversations so interesting.
ReplyDeleteYes indeed!
DeleteMetaphors can go in all sorts of directions, can't they?
ReplyDeleteIt's fun to play with words :)
DeleteIt's surprising how many words there are that mean different things but sound alike, whether or not they're spelled alike. Most of the time context avoids confusion, but in this case I can see why your daughter was puzzled since "vessel" in the sense of container is a relatively rare usage. As for love and relationships, we'll never find an interpretation of those that everybody agrees on. That's why it's important to make expectations clear at the beginning.
ReplyDeleteI love that conversation! It's interesting how the same word can mean different things.
ReplyDeleteI don't always think about how many Words mean so many different things, especially in English. My Welsh Mom told me that is why English was a very hard language to Learn, becoz the same Words held so many various meanings and she found that to be confusing. Your Daughter coming up with different Vessels was interesting tho', I immediately thought of an Earthen Pot myself when you used the Word. I agree with Infidel that often context may avoid confusion, tho' not always. My Mind tends to go in a different direction to what someone may be trying to convey. And Love and Relationships, well, I'd venture to say that could mean so many different things to each of us.
ReplyDelete