Email me at jmayhew at ku dot edu
"The very existence of poetry should make us laugh. What is it all about? What is it for?"
--Kenneth Koch
“El subtítulo ‘Modelo para armar’ podría llevar a creer que las
diferentes partes del relato, separadas por blancos, se proponen como piezas permutables.”
Why don't you try that? You could start with words like charge and load and see if you can some up with enough ways in which those two words are synonymous.
Whoops, sorry, that's what I get for reading the blog from the top of the page -- obviously Language Log was the starting point.
When the polysemy depends on metaphorical extension, then I suspect there won't be a parallel polysemy from another base word. For example, there are lots of ways to say "unripe", but only one of them is conventionally applied to people.
Crack, right?
ResponderEliminarI've never played this game before. I had to go back to that "put down" post and see the answer before I even understood what I supposed to do.
Yes. Like a crack shot, crack cocaine, a crack in the ceiling, the crack of a whip.
ResponderEliminarHas anyone ever designed one that has two (or more) equally good solutions? A sort of polysemous polysemy puzzle.
ResponderEliminarWhy don't you try that? You could start with words like charge and load and see if you can some up with enough ways in which those two words are synonymous.
ResponderEliminarOf these, only "expert" is a little tricky; seeing it in isolation, I thought only of the noun form.
ResponderEliminarLanguage Log does these regularly, as you know. Pullum's latest wound up with a good rant.
Thomas, I like your variant; a good one to puzzle over in insomniac nights.
Whoops, sorry, that's what I get for reading the blog from the top of the page -- obviously Language Log was the starting point.
ResponderEliminarWhen the polysemy depends on metaphorical extension, then I suspect there won't be a parallel polysemy from another base word. For example, there are lots of ways to say "unripe", but only one of them is conventionally applied to people.