A homonym is a word that sounds exactly like another word and shares the same spelling — but they have different meanings.

Photo © iStockPhoto.com / Anatoly Tiplyashin

• Melissa’s dog gave a bark when the squirrel scurried up the bark of the nearby tree.
• When the stranger rose up from the park bench, he handed Melissa a red rose.
• Just before he left, she stood up and kissed the man lightly on his left cheek in thanks.

There are several linguistic concepts closely related to homonyms. Homonyms are both homographs (words that are spelled the same) and homophones (words that sound the same). Because the definition of homonymy requires groups of words to have different meanings, words that differ only subtlely in meaning may not be considered homonyms — “bank” can refer to a financial institution as a whole (such as Bank of America or Wells Fargo), or  to a branch or building from which the financial institution operates, or to the concept of engaging in secure financial transactions. These related words are called polysemes.

There is a special subset of homonyms called contronyms or auto-antonyms that are groups of words with different meaning, one of which is defined as the opposite of one of its other meaning.

• You dust your furniture (remove), or dust a cake with powdered sugar (add).
• Seatbelts buckle (fasten), and cars buckle (bend, then break).
• You can go back in time (into the past), or push back a deadline (into the future).
• There’s first-degree murder (the most severe), and first-degree burns (the least severe).
• You can fix a toy (mend something), or fix a dog (make it never work again).
• Food can be garnished (added), and wages can be garnished (removed).
• An alarm can go off (make sounds), or be turned off (stop making sounds).
• Stars can be out (visible), and lights can be out (not visible).
• I can work out of my home, or work out of my office (be there, or not be there).
• A lantern puts out heat (produces), and a fireman puts out fires (extinguishes).
• They can screen a movie (show in public), or screen your calls (hide from public).
• A house weathers a storm (endures), and smoking weathers your skin (damages).

Given all the intricacies, I certainly don’t blame anyone for having difficulty with the language.

Scientists have a lot to say about color perception — Dogs see the world only in black, white, and shades of grey. Cats, on the other hand, see a large variety of colors, but at a more subtle level than we. Many birds, fish, and reptiles also see certain colors, albeit poorly. And some other mammals even see yellow and blue the way humans do.

Why is color perception different between animals and us humans?  The scientists would say it’s because a human’s retinas contain more distinct types of cones, the photoreceptor neurons in the retina that convert light into color by absorbing photons of varying wavelengths. The variances in photon absorption between the different cone types allow the human brain to perceive a myriad colors.

OK, that’s the mildly technical explanation. But who’s to say that you truly see colors the way I do?

Think about it. We’re all different. We taste things differently, and we smell things differently. In both cases, something that is pleasant to one person may be repulsive to another. We look different. We speak differently. Some people use the right side of their brain; others, their left. Most people shouldn’t wear Spandex, while a very select few can make it work. Even when comparing to animals’ capabilities, isn’t “the way us humans see color” just too general? Isn’t it possible that when I’m seeing red, you perceive it differently?

After all, how do I communicate to you what red is to me?

It’s… well… it’s… it’s just red!

Photo © iStockPhoto.com / Evgeny Kan

I know which things are red because someone taught me that the apple I was eating was red, or that the fire engine that screamed by our house was red, or that sexy two-piece swimsuit on that girl on the beach is red.

Sure, we can measure the color red in terms of frequency, wavelength, and vibration — but it’s still not possible to convey to you how I’m personally seeing it. If we were able to transplant my eyes and the part of my brain that is stimulated by color and processes images, and then connect them to the part of your brain that contains the background knowledge, images, and ideas, who’s to say that that we’d still “see” color exactly they way we did before?

When we determine whether or not animals can see color, we’re testing their ability to distinguish between differing colors, measuring responses to various wavelengths of light, quantifying the abilities of light-sensitive proteins to absorb photons, calculating neuron transmembrane electrical potential.

That’s not the same thing as determining whether or not our perception of red is the same as their perception. For all we know, they don’t actually see in black and white, maybe they just see colors differently. Or, for that matter, they may see colors beyond our perception.

Since we can’t really tell what colors look like to animals (not just what colors they can or cannot see) and we can’t even communicate what colors look like amongst ourselves, I’m willing to bet that when I see red, you’re seeing something quite different. And I don’t think that there’s anything science can do to prove it either way.

I’m just thankful for that bikini, no matter what color it is.

I’ve recently received several unsolicited emails from a company advertising their domain name registration service that included the following disclaimer at the bottom of each email:

“We strongly oppose the continued sending of unsolicited email and do not want to send email to anyone who does not wish to receive our special mailings. This is not SPAM.”

Do companies really think that people will be fooled by this? “Oh, we are a righteous, honest company that would never, ever send you spam and to prove it, we’re spamming you!” Come on, now! As they say, a rose by any other name is still a gøddåmn rose! The content of spam is and has always been irrelevant; if it’s sent unsolicited and in bulk, it is spam — even if the sender claims it’s not spam.

Perhaps someone equally (un)scrupulous should set up an attack on said company’s web servers with the message “We strongly oppose Denial-Of-Service attacks, and do not want to attack anyone who does not wish to be a victim of our attacks. This is not a DoS attack.”

Do you think the spammers would buy that?

I really hate spammers…

Author’s Note

While this pure rant doesn’t really belong on the revamped, pruned, overhauled Richard’s Ramblings, there is a small degree of nostalgia associated with the first-ever entry. One small nugget of spam, one giant leap into blogdom.