Homonyms Are Our Friends
From Wikepedia, “In linguistics, a homonym is one of a group of words that share the same pronunciation but have different meanings, and are usually spelled the same.”
I love homonyms. Okay, love is a tad strong. I like homonyms a lot, that is, I think they’re fun to play with.
So, let’s have some fun with two homonyms, sale and sail. Plural usage of the word is allowed.
Here are just a few things that come to mind. If you can think of any other examples, please post them in the comments section. The more the merrier.
Here we go!
When you decide to sell an item for a lower than normal price, the item is on sale.
Something can be for sale, up for sale, but seldom down for sale.
There are big sales, and small sales.
Sales can have figures.
There are cash sales.
There are credit sales.
You can name a sale practically anything you want: Bake Sales, Pie Sale, President’s Day Sale, etc.
Something doesn’t have to be on sale to be for sale. When you’re selling a house for instance. You hope to get more than you paid for it, yet the house is for sale.
There are for sale signs, and not for sale signs.
Sales have time limits. Sale ends today. Sale starts today. Sale begins at midnight, etc.
And then, there are no sales. Which is a sale that didn’t happen.
You can sail a boat.
Put a sails on a boat.
Change the type of boat. When you put a sail on a boat, the boat becomes a sailboat. But, if you put a sail on a car, it doesn’t become a sailcar. Howcome?
You can sail along in life.
Your sails can be full of wind.. You can have the wind taken out of your sails.
You can sell your sails. In that case you’d have a sail sale.
You can set sail.
You can raise your sail, and lower your sail
You can sail across the lake, sail down the lake, but very rarely does one sail up the lake.
You can sail across the ocean blue.
You can sail right by something.
