LEND ME YOUR EAR: BAFFLED BY ENGLISH SYNONYMS? TRY ESKIMO!

Newsmen reporting on the War in the Gulf became enamored of a word that troubled word watchers. Again and again, we heard our allies were in favor of continuing to "prosecute" the war, and one of our readers thought the reporters were dead wrong. To her, and to others, to "prosecute" meant to condemn.

To prosecute means to pursue, to carry to completion. However, in the legal sense, it denotes action against, or seeking to enforce legal action, and connotation has a way of limiting or expanding definition.

Language experts agree that English is the richest language in the world. Trouble is, our language is so rich in synonyms it causes problems even for born-and-bred Americans who are more than barely literate. I had to think twice when I heard a statement by Kuwait's ambassador to the United States. "I don't think we are in a position to pronounce on this subject," the ambassador replied to his interviewer. My lightning reaction to the word pronounce has to do with pronunciation. American idiom prefers comment to pronounce, though in this instance either is acceptable.

"In the strictest sense," we read in Webster's Dictionary of Synonyms, "synonymous words scarcely exist...By synonymous words we understand words that coincide or nearly coincide in some part of their meaning..." An example taken from Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary, 1894, presented synonyms for HARMONY: accord, accordance, agreement, amity, concord, conformance, conformity, congruity, consent, consistency, conscience, symmetry, unanimity, union, unison, unity.

Examine these one by one, and try each in the same sentence. Is amity (among nations) the same as symmetry? If you have to consent to your daughter's marriage, does this necessarily produce harmony? If you don't join a union does this mean you are at odds with your conscience? Au contraire!

Suppose you have a brainy friend and want to tell him how smart you think he is, but you're searching for a less common term. In your dictionaries (some readers have more than one) you may find bright, intelligent, sharp, energetic, fashionable, dashing, quick-witted, clever, perspicacious, alert, brilliant, humorous, and impertinent. It's a long trip from smart to impertinent. Take the trip, and lose your friend!

Say you have a son who is a recovered alcoholic, and you learn he has "slipped back." Consult your dictionary for a term to soften the blow, and you find slip means anything from slide, glide, and escape to a plant, a pillow case, or a lady's undergarment. Re-reading the counselor's report on your son, you are impressed, but stumped by the word recidivism, so you look it up. Relapse! Now there is a word you know. Your dictionary is your best source if you know where to look and how to discriminate. Why wasn't it used in the report?

In a review of a book titled "Dactylology", I learned dactylology is the art of communicating by signs made with the fingers. The book was written for deaf-mutes, but travelers abroad might make good use of it too. Sign language saved our skin in Europe more than did the list of foreign terms we carried with us. Articulate speech should be so simple!

Put yourself in the shoes of a foreigner trying to read English, and you are baffled by the word extremity. Your standard dictionary will explain that extremity implies the utmost removal from that which is safe, reasonable, or endurable. It also means the moment at which death is imminent and is used to refer to a hand or a foot as well!

Granted synonyms cause trouble, let us thank God we speak American. The Inuits of the Arctic, formerly known as Eskimos, have more than 30 words for snow: wet, dry, fresh, trod upon, blowing, dancing, blizzarding, thick, thin, icy, sloppy, you name it, they have it. They have at least 15 for wind, and countless others to describe every facet of winter weather.

Almost half-way through March, we've needed only one word to apply to our winter weather: unpredictable!