OHU

Homonyms, history, language and the evolution of systems

It’s hard to write about homonyms, because the whole point is that they’re words that sound the same but have different meanings, but if I write them down it can be obvious that they’re different*

Like pen and pen.

Or neigh and nay.

And buy and by.

English is confusing, and given that language is essentially a way to get an idea from one person’s head into another person’s head, this is something of a cause for concern for me. I didn't spend four years studying engineering to not value precision and clarity.

And yet, the vagaries of the English language also lend itself to humour and also the continual evolution of the language as we develop alternative ways to be both more precise (e.g. “google”) and more confusion (e.g. “yeet”).

In the hands of a skilful comedian, or youth culture, the English language continues to evolve. The system’s built that way.

On the other hand, the property system seems to be pretty baked-in, and unlikely to shift anytime soon by virtue of spontaneous innovation, the way that language appears to do. This may simply by my lack of understanding of history and the system, but at the very least my observation is that most people seem to go along with the status quo and conventional wisdom.

It’s going to take a skilful group of people for the property system to evolve.

And it seems to be starting.

*English nerds will know that, strictly speaking, I’m only talking about homophones, and a strict definition of a homonym would be a word that is spelt and sounds the same, but has multiple meanings.