Someone told me that the English language is the only Latin Based language where we can say that's the greenhouse, that's the green house, or that's the Green house and the listener will know by our inflection if we are talking about a glass house, a house with green siding or a house where the Green family resides. I don't know if this is true or not,(if English is the only language where this occurs) Where inflection must be used to distinguish one meaning from another... but I found it interesting. "I feel that if a person has problems communicating the very least he can do is to shut up."
Tom Lehrer
12 comments:
At least in finnish all these 3 are different. There are ,however, other words that have 3 different meanings. That was a really GREEN house you have captured there.
I'd be interested in examples, Chrome3D. Are all the letters the same, in the same order?
Cool post! I just love neat language trivia stuff like this. I was able to inflect the house of glass, but can't quite tell the paint from the surname.
(still chuckling over the Lehrer quote).
It wasn't the different meanings that got me, but the need to use inflection in speech to differentiate between them.
lol...good point
thanks for popping by
Interesting post. Thanks for the visit to my blog. Have a nice day.
For example MAKASIINI. it means:
- Case for bullets in the rifle
- Newspaper (magazine)
- Warehouse (6 different types of warehouse)
There is more. I just have to remember them.
Ha, ha. Love it
Chrome d3, but you can't tell by inflection what someone means if they simply say "We saw the Makasiini" my example has stressors.
Oh unless makasiini is spoken differently each time, then it works.
There is no difference how it´s spoken, inflection(?). The other words have to explain the context. I´m not really an expert so others might know more.
i get it but it's hard once you think about it...
I want to buy the greenhouse
I want to buy the GREEN house
I want to buy the green HOUSE
maybe it's more subtle than this though.
Post a Comment