dictionary of ambigous words in english

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Request for Question Clarification by hummer-ga on 30 Mar 2003 16:35 PST

Hi bg424,

Interesting - aren't all words ambiguous (capable of being understand
in more than one way)?  Are you referring to a specific discipline
where certain terminology may be ambiguous?  hummer

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Clarification of Question by bg424-ga on 30 Mar 2003 17:11 PST

I should have asked for Ambigious Phrases.
Example " You ...... like me" has a double meaning

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Clarification of Question by bg424-ga on 01 Apr 2003 06:18 PST

How about words that are spelled differently but are pronounced the same.
Example "by and buy" or "Like and like You like me or we are the same"
Is there s dictionary or a list somewhere?

Hi bg424,

The word you are looking for is "homophones" - words with different
meanings and spellings that sound alike.

ONLINE:

An English Homophone Dictionary:
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/homofone.htm


LINKS:

Homophone Online Dictionaries:
http://webster.directhit.com/webster/search.aspx?qry=Online+Homophones+Dictionary&meta=rs

Open Directory links:
http://dmoz.org/Reference/Dictionaries/Pronouncing/

EBOOK:

Roger's Reference: The Complete Homonym & Homophone Dictionary"
http://rogersreference.com/rrdictionary.htm

BOOKS TO BUY:

A Dictionary of Homophones: new at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0764101684/qid=1049210732/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-5835827-9207812?v=glance&s=books

Following is a list of used books search sites. Type "homonyms" in the
title field for comparison shopping. Some titles you will find:

"An Index of Over 2500 Homophones"
"Ear is Human a Handbook of Homophones and Other Confusions"
"Homophones and Homographs: An American Dictionary"

http://www.abebooks.com -or- http://www.abebooks.co.uk
http://www.tomfolio.com : A co-op of independent booksellers
http://www.bookfinder.com : Searches several sites but often doesn't
show all results.
http://used.addall.com/ : Also searches several sites but often
doesn't show all results.
http://www.zshops.com 
http://www.bibliophile.net
http://www.bookavenue.com
http://www.choosebooks.com

I hope this helps you to find what you are looking for. Please post a
clarification request if you have any questions.

Thank you,
hummer

Search Strategy:
://www.google.ca/search?as_q=homophone+dictionary&num=100&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&safe=images

Terms Used:
homophone dictionary

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Clarification of Answer by hummer-ga on 01 Apr 2003 08:29 PST

Sorry, please change "homonyms" to "homophones" in the following sentence: 

"Following is a list of used books search sites. Type "homonyms" in the
title field for comparison shopping. Some titles you will find:"

hummer

Hello Bg424,

I did not find a dictionary like you requested, but will post my
research as comment hoping it's helpful.


Carl Mills (Linguistics Program, University of Cincinnati) writes:

RE: double-meanings?
http://www.linguistlist.org/~ask-ling/archive-most-recent/msg05915.html
"Such phrases as the ones you cite are known as ambiguous phrases or,
if they
are complete sentences, ambiguous sentences."


I collected some examples from sites like the following:

Ambiguous sentences
http://lambda.weblogs.com/discuss/msgReader$1127

- "My dog has no nose" - " So how does it smell?" - "Awful!"
- "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog it's
too dark to read."
- "A man eating hamburger and a man eating shark"
- My nose runs and my feet smell
- "I saw a man with my binoculars, but I was too late to overtake him
and ask them back."
- "A large cell group was observed in this area of the striatum." (--
Large cells, or large group?)
- Pack ice
- Shooting missiles
- Flying planes
- "I saw the man with the telescope."
- "Salespeople sold the dog biscuits."
- "Gene Autry is better after being kicked by a horse."
- Biting insects
- "Let her know if she is invited"


Following page has a lot of examples:

Linguistic humor
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/humor/contents.html

- "Her true ability was deceiving." (-- "Structural ambiguity" for a
dishonest employee)
- "All in all, I cannot say enough good things about this candidate or
recommend him too highly." (-- "Scope ambuigity" for for an employee
who is not worth further consideration as a job candidate.)

These are from newspapers:

- "Complaints About NBA Referees Growing Ugly"
- "Enraged Cow Injures Farmer with Ax"
- "Lawyers Give Poor Free Legal Advice"
- "Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim"
- "Two Sisters Reunited After 18 Years in Checkout Counter"
- "Drunk Gets Nine Months in Violin Case"
- "Include Your Children When Baking Cookies"
- "We will sell gasoline to anyone in a glass container."
- "Two cars were reported stolen by the Groveton police yesterday."


Also, this joke:

GrammarJokes
http://web.bryant.edu/~ehu/cld/projects/grammar/

"She: 
- Now that we are engaged, will you give me a ring, dear? 
He: 
- Certainly, darling. What is your phone number?"

And (you need to register to see the full text):

Free Essays on Linguistics: Double Meaning
http://www.freeforessays.com/show_essay/8936.html
"Q. What do prisoners use to call each other?
A. Cell phones!"

And quoting Groucho Marx:

"One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my
pajamas, I'll never know. (...)"

The author differentiates lexical ambiguity (as result of different
word definitions) and structurally ambiguous sentences (in which the
interpretation of constituents is unclear).


Search terms:
ambiguous sentences
ambiguous phrases
linguistic "double-meaning"
"linguistic double-meaning"
structural ambiguity
dictionary sentence ambiguities
"examples of ambiguous phrasing"
"list of ambiguous sentences"
(...)

Two books you might find useful, dealing with ambiguous words and
phrases, are:

Bill Bryson, "The Facts on File Dictionary of Troublesome Words",
Facts on File, 1987.  (I believe this has been published by other
houses as well, so you might just find it elsewhere as "The Dictionary
of Troublesome Words", or "The xxxxx Dictionary of Troublesome Words".

Laurence Udang, "The Dictionary of Confusable Words", Facts on File,
1988.

Both contain some fun examples, and explanations etc etc.

Good luck!