A journey into the wonderful world of words is simply
amazing, for, we could come out with some exciting explorations.
“Wear your shoes, Rishab, it’s getting late for school,” I
called out to my little son, who, not so long ago, was still studying in a KG
school. He immediately asked me, “Which wear Amma, “hakkolo” wear or “elli”
where?” I was taken aback for a moment, for, the thought of these little
children, even as they are learning to weave the alphabets into words, have
already got into the rigmarole of English language. It was yet to dawn on him
that there is yet another kind of “ware” too.
Before we begin to clear these and many such doubts that
crop up in the minds of children, it’s time to go gallivanting into the World
of Words. Let us begin the first lap of our tour by going back to the example
of “hakkolo” wear, “elli” where and another kind of
ware, which refers to a specified kind of article. We find endless list of such
words in English where two or more words can have the same sound though they
spell and mean differently. Words of this kind are called HOMOPHONES,
which in Greek means ‘having same sound’. More examples of Homophones are
Hare-Hair, Sea-See, Know-No, To-Two-Too, etc.
Now begins the second lap of our journey. One day, while I was
in a workshop, waiting for the delivery of my vehicle, a young boy, who had
come to get his bicycle tyre mended, pointed to the thin rod radiating from the
wheel and asked what it is called, to which the repairer, busy with his job,
muttered something. Unable to understand the repairer’s response, the boy asked
the same question to his father. His father said it is part of a wheel.
“Yeah, I know, but what is it called?” pestered the
boy.
“I said, it is part of a wheel”, pat came the father’s
reply.
Little did the boy know, that, the clue to the answer lay in
the father’s reply.
Well, the answer is a five-lettered word that has two
meanings and both the meanings are there in the father’s reply to his son i.e.,
“I said, it is part of a wheel.” Can you guess the word? Yes, you guessed it
right. The word is SPOKE because SPOKE means “said” and it also means “part of
the wheel.” How many more such words can you find and what are they called?
Words of this kind i.e., words that spell and sound the same, but can have more
than one meaning are aplenty and are called HOMONYMS.
Let’s take a quick look at a few more Homonyms.
Unable to bear the cacophony created by students in a class,
a teacher announced to the students “Only those of you who are well-behaved and
attentive in the classroom can sit in my class. Others who do nothing can go
out.” Can you think of a word that can mean “Others” as well as “who do
nothing.” Well, the answer is REST because Rest means others and can also mean
doing nothing.
Similarly, we can think of “The skin of a tree sounding like
a dog” as BARK; “A relative in a hospital” as a SISTER; “Teach about this mode
of transport” as TRAIN etc.
We now move on to the next lap of our tour. If Homonym means
a word that has more than one meaning, what then is a synonym? Word having
nearly the same meaning as another in the same language is called a SYNONYM.
Examples of Synonyms can be
Dealer, Seller, Trader;
Client, Customer, Buyer;
Void, Vacuum; Scarce, Sparse;
Result, Effect;
Total, Sum and the list goes on …..
It would be worthy to mention at this point that these types
of words, though similar in meaning, may differ in usage, depending on the
context.
We are now reminded of words having totally opposite
meanings with one another, which are called ANTONYMS. Words like
Tall x Short;
Light x Heavy;
Light x Dark;
Buy x Sell, etc.
After Homophones and Homonyms, Synonyms and Antonyms, we now
come to last lap of our journey. Let us pause for a while to find out what WOW
means and what are such words called. WOW stands for World of Words. It is a
word formed from the first letter of each word in the phrase “World Of Words.”
Such a word that is formed from the initial letters of words in a phrase is
called ACRONYM. To list a few,
PM – Prime Minister,
WHO – World Health Organisation,
WWW – World Wide Web,
SCUBA – Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus,
VIBGYOR – each alphabet representing one of the colours of
the rainbow, etc.
However, Acronym should not be mistaken for ABBREVIATION
which means a shortened contracted form of a word or phrase, used to represent
the whole.
Take for example the word STD. When used as an Acronym, STD
can mean “Straight Trunk Dialing”, but when used as an abbreviation, it can
mean “Standard.” To quote more examples of abbreviations,
The word “Adjective” can be
abbreviated to ADJ, Subject – SUB, Serial Number – Sl. No., etc. Perusal of a
dictionary that gives a complete list of abbreviations used in the book may
probably be a good beginning to understand more about abbreviations.
Before we end our journey, let me give you a puzzle.
Unscramble the word MILES to get another word that means “an
expression of the face indicating pleasure or amusement.” (You can find the
answer at the end of this article.)
What is the term used to describe a word or sentence formed
by rewriting (in a different order) the letters of another word or sentence? It
is called ANAGRAM.
Solving Word Jumbles and
Crosswords are some of the many ways that surely help one become an expert at
handling Anagrams.
There are yet another kind of words that spell the same but
when sounded differently gives a totally different meaning. For example,
MINUTE can mean the
sixtieth part of an hour but when pronounced differently means extremely small
in size.
Having got an insight into
the complexity that surrounds this beautiful language of English, don’t you
think we have made a fruitful trip? You too can take a tour of WOW!
and discover the Wonder of
Words anytime, anywhere, alone or with friends by breezing through books,
delving into dictionaries, embedding in encyclopedia, getting hooked to the
‘Net’ or by simply fishing through the vast ocean of knowledge and information
that keeps staring at us. All we need to do is to just keep our eyes and ears
wide open to see, hear and enjoy a wide gamut of words whirling in the world
around us.
The answer, by the way, is SMILE. Got it? WOW!
Mangala Madhu Chand
