Talk:Heteronym

Fogging a clear definition

Defining heteronym as "one of two or more homographs that are spelled alike":

Repeats itself: Merriam-Webster says a homograph IS "one of two or more words spelled alike but different in meaning." [1] What other kind of homograph is there in this context?
Substitues an obtuse and opaque "definition" for a simple and clear one.

Merriam-Webster says a heteronym is: "one of two or more homographs ... that differ in pronunciation and meaning." [2] Thus a heteronym is, in PLAIN LANGUAGE: One of two or more words spelled alike that differ in pronunciation and meaning." --NathanHawking 08:51, 2004 Nov 1 (UTC)

So, if homograph and heteronym are synonyms, why do we need two separate lists of them? Nohat 23:09, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I began the list of heteronyms because an exhaustive "List of" did not exist. I note that an article for Cliché exists as well as a List of clichés, an article for Homonyms as well as a List of commonly confused homonyms. Have you recommended them for merging?

To be honest, your sniping at my articles is beginning to feel like stalking and harassment.--NathanHawking 03:00, 2004 Nov 2 (UTC)

You misunderstood. In reference to List of heteronyms, I was asking why we needed that page when we already have List of English homographs. I'm sorry you feel like I'm stalking or harassing you, but the articles you have chosen to edit and how you've gone about editing them have begun to feel like you're out to undermine much of the work I have spent the last 18 months contributing to Wikipedia. Nohat 03:55, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Disambiguation page

Or a disambiguation page could be created, using Heteronym and Heteronym (poetry). This page didn't even exist until a month ago and I created it to be linked from Fernando Pessoa, so could people just quit whining about neologism and "plain language" and just solve this for once? It's so simple. --Sn0wflake 20:06, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

No problem with a disambiguation page if one is really needed. My issue was with Nohat's turning a clear definition of the language aspect into a poorly-worded one, which I remedied. Far as I'm concerned, the page is fine now. --NathanHawking 21:48, 2004 Nov 1 (UTC)

Settled.

Let's leave this as it is, then. This is a stub after all, and when it gets properly developed these problems won't exist. I will just remove the "See Also" as it will probably never be used. --Sn0wflake 03:48, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A type of Homonym?

I don't believe that heteronyms are a type of homonym, as is stated in the article. If you reason this out looking at the root of the word even, it's obvious that it's not true. Besides which, a homonym is defined as words which have the same spelling (typically) and pronunciation. Whereas heteronyms have the same spelling, but a different pronunciation - the only similarity being that in both hetero and homo nyms, the spelling is the same - and even this is not always the case, as some homonyms do not have the same spelling. I've reworded the article to reflect this inaccuracy.Wisher 18:02, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Heteronym may refer to similar to a homonym" ?

Gramatically incorrect, but more importantly it doesn't logically seem to imply much of anything; 'homonym' (as I understand it) merely groups two distinct types of similar-but-different concepts, namely homographs and homophones.

Actually, homograph seems to have a very similar definition to heteronym, depending on where you look. The way I understand it, with heteronyms it seems the pronunciation has to differ, with homographs that's not a requirement, just true in many practical examples. But I'm not awake enough right now to risk editing myself, so someone...:)

Why all the NPs and BHs after the examples?

Are these the initials of contributors?Rich (talk) 08:13, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also can't help but notice that most of this list is in alphabetical order, but only goes up to 'C' - it looks like this may have been copied verbatim from some website somewhere, and they just didn't go past the first page or something, but no source is given, so we don't know. (The out-of-order ones at the bottom were probably added by other people, but I don't feel like digging through the history right now.) Lurlock (talk) 05:14, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merger

This page really should be merged into Heteronym (linguistics) or vice versa, with most of the latter remaining. The current page seems a little low on quality... I'll start the process myself soon. -- χγʒ͡ʒγʋᾳ (talk) 23:47, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

i'm not so sure that most of the examples are true heteronyms

if it's merely the verb and adjective form, like in "attribute", then i have doubts. Anyway, examples like that are less interesting than pairs like "bow".Rich (talk) 07:41, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]