Fun

!!!Friday!!!

Naming the -Nyms

From the work of Richard Lederer

and Richard Nordquist

Familiar -nyms• Synonym: words with similar meaning –

joyful, glad• Antonym: words that mean the opposite –

happy, sad• Pseudonym: fictitious name used to

conceal identity – Mark Twain (really Samuel Clements)

• Acronym: word formed from the first letter of each word of a name – HUD (Housing and Urban Development)

Lessfamiliar-nyms

heteronym (HET-uhr-uh-nim): Same spelling, pronounced differently with different meaning.

Listen, readers, toward me bow.Be friendly; do not draw the bow.Please don't try to start a row.Sit peacefully, all in a row.Don't act like a big, fat sow.Do not the seeds of discord sow.

More heteronyms

• He sings bass, and fishes for bass.• He chose to desert the Army and live

in the desert.• The white dove dove at her hat.• He winds his old watch as the winds

blow.• He wound the bandage around his

wound.

aptronym (AP-troh-NIM): A name that is especially suited to the profession of its owner.

Real names:Dan Druff, a barberFelicity Foote, a dance teacher James Bugg, an exterminator Christopher Sheriff, a police officerWilliam Wordsworth, the poetMargaret Court, the tennis championSally Ride, the astronautLarry Speakes, presidential spokesmanJim Kiick, the football starLorena Bobbitt ("bob it"), the you-know-what-er.

William Wordsworth

capitonym (KAP-i-toh-NIM) : A word that changes pronunciation and meaning when it is capitalized.

Job's Job

In August, an august patriarch

Was reading an ad in Reading, Mass.

Long-suffering Job secured a job

To polish piles of Polish brass.

One more capitonymic poem

Herb's Herbs

An herb store owner, name of Herb,

Moved to a rainier Mount Rainier.

It would have been so nice in Nice,

And even tangier in Tangier.

retronym (RE-truh-nim): An adjective-noun pairing generated by a change in the meaning of the noun, usually because of advances in

technology.

Television: cable TV gave us on-air or broadcast TV

Mail: e-mail gave us snail mail

Retronyms of the future?

nonelectronic book

teacher-staffed school

double-parent family

contronym (KAHN-troh-NIM): A word that generates two opposite meanings.

When the alarm goes off, it is on.

To make it be quiet, I shut it off.

When the stars are out, they are visible.

When the light is out, it is invisible.

You have oversight (careful supervision) of the project when you are in charge.

But the project may fail because of your oversight (neglect) of crucial points.

More contronyms:

Stay of execution (stop it)

Stay the course (continue it)

Wicked person (evil)

Wicked performance (very good)

A few more -nyms

Eponym

A word (such as cardigan) derived from

the proper name of a real or mythical

person or place (in this case, the Seventh

Earl of Cardigan, James Thomas Brudenell).

Exonym

A place name that isn't used by the people who live in that

place. Vienna, for example, is the English exonym for the

German and Austrian Wien. Endonym is what the locals

call it. So the exonym is Japan and the endonym is Nippon!

And two more!

Mononym

A one-word name (such as "Oprah" or "Bono") by which a person or thing is popularly known.

OronymA sequence of words (for example, "ice

cream") that sounds the same as a different sequence of words

("I scream").

Have a great -nym day!