Hello! I'm sure some of you are smiling to your screens right now. I found this pretty funny when I first saw it. Well, it's taken from NoiseBot.com, a website selling funny t-shirts, hoodies and bags. Their designs make good MSN avatars, hence the title of this post.Anyway, the phrase here has two meanings...
1) One which means literally subscription to a magazine and how the subscriber finds the magazine issues boring,
and the other
2) How person A wants to severe ties with person B because A is sick of the constant problems/ whining person B weighs A down with.
Hence, I think that "subscription" and "issues" are homonyms... (I'm not too sure, can someone enlighten me please?)
Anyway, I'm sure we all know straight away that it's the 2nd option :)
-Bernice
1 comment:
Hi Bernice. Nice example.
To address your question: With the word "issue", I think we're dealing with a case of polysemy rather than homonymy. Two words are homonyms if they are "separate words that are spelt and pronounced the same way" (Leong, Deterding, Low, 2006, p. 67). Homonyms typically have different word origins (or etymology). So, for example, the Random House College Dictionary has:
file (1) - a folder, cabinet or other container in which papers, letters, etc. are arranged in convenient order ...
file (2) - a long, narrow tool of steel or other metal having a series of ridges ... fro reducing or smoothing surfaces ...
File (1) comes to us from Latin, through French and Middle English.
File (2) comes to us from Old English.
They are two words which are spelt and pronounced the same way.
With "issue", however, if you check the dictionary, you will see that we are basically dealing with just one word which has broadened its meanings over time. This is a case of polysemy.
R Tang.
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