LEND ME YOUR EAR: HOMONYMS, ANTONYMS, AND OTHER CONTRARY `NYMS'

Unfortunately, my definition of "homophone" in a recent column -- "the phone you leave home without" -- triggered requests for a more satisfactory definition. Fancy that!

The Devil didn't make me do it. It was American Express, with that persistent "Don't leave home without it" commercial for their credit card. I was just playing a game with my perpetrators.

Gentle readers, a homophone is twin sister to the more familiar homonym. Webster defines both as "one or more words" that may be spelled alike or differently, pronounced the same or not, but vary in origin and meaning. All this in a word of one syllable? Yes indeedy!

Take the word "court." All school gymnasiums have a basketball court. Politicians court judges, judges hold court in a court house. Young males are likely to court girls too fervently, and wind up being convicted by a court.

Now take words that sound alike, are pronounced alike, but are spelled differently and have different meanings. For example, "soul, sole"; "profit, prophet"; "waist, waste." Everyone has a soul, but I may be the sole owner of a shoe without a sole. My thrifty soul is loathe to part with a sole sole. As the prophet said, Waste not, want not, though these days a waist is something no one wants more of. Weight Watchers say the more a waist wastes, the better for the health. Yet medical prophets agree that there is no profit in too little waist.

Need I explain again that there are no effective rules for learning to spell? The only way is to consult dictionaries, and memorize what we find. The same may be said for pronunciation, though a listening ear is also helpful. For entertainment as well as profit, let me recommend, not for the first time, Charles Elster's THERE IS NO ZOO IN ZOOLOGY, IS THERE A COW IN MOSCOW? (I'm in this one!), and yet again James Kilpatrick's THE EAR IS HUMAN.

One word that would give foreigners nightmares, suggests Kilpatrick, is the four-letter word "bass." If you are addicted to fishing, the "bass" you fish for rhymes with "grass." If you sing or play drums, the "bass" you sing, and the drums you beat, rhyme with "base." But the singer who sings "bass" is called a "basso", as in "lasso."

Antonyms are simpler, and provide fodder for the primary school teacher. Children love to play games even with words, and words they know evoke delighted responses to opposites. Dark--light, fast--slow, hot--cold, to name only a few.

Small fry may have a problem with "cool", however, if they have teenage siblings. Those who have not agreed with ad men that "School is cool" are apt to cry "Dis!" instead of "warm!"

Long-time readers of these columns are familiar with contranyms -- words having opposite meanings, such as "cleave", "awful", "exceptional", and "fast." Lovers cling and cleave to each other, but a butcher cleaves a roast in two. "Awful" may mean reverent -- full of awe -- or dreadful. An exceptional child may be a genius, or one who is retarded. Tonya Harding was known as a fast skater, but she forgot to hold fast to fair play.

Once, I wrote a piece about words that mean the same regardless of prefixes that seemed to render them opposites. Among these were "loosen, unloosen", "hull, de-hull", and "flammable, inflammable." A gentleman may loosen or unloosen his tie without loss of verbal prestige. "De-hull" is not a dictionary term, but a reputable food industry markets products containing sesame seeds they describe as "de-hulled."

Sad to say, my adding "flammable, inflammable" to the list infuriated a St. Louis student of linguistics. He lost no time in letting me know that "contranym" is not recognized by the linguistic community, and that "flammable and inflammable" would not qualify on any count because the roots were different.

Both words mean "capable of being ignited," whether by fire, temper, or ego. Not being too well-versed in the history of words, I know not whether similar pairs exist. For which reason, the category I coined for the two words under fire -- "anomoly" -- remains undocumented to this day.

How frustrating a job we love can sometimes be!