Homonyms in Chinese and in English (#113; Topic L)

New York Times of 3/24/06 has a front-page story on US citizens' adopting Chinese children. Most adoptees came to USA as infants, and some of them are now teenagers. Still, since they are identified as "immigrants," some school districts insist on testing their command of English. Upon hearing this, one said, "we probably speak better English than the teacher." In my view, while this is probable with reading, or even with writing, it is unlikely with speaking. This is because, in speaking, one can fudge one's way out. Is one using the word its or it's correctly? It is easy to see in one's writing, but difficult to tell when one is speaking. A couple of days ago, I was buying something online, and was directed by the computer to fill a form. The form's instructions begin with "Their are ...". I could not figure out what I was to do, then it dawned on me that the instructions make sense when Their is changed to There. I mentioned this to a saleslady when I had to ask a question; she admitted that, over the years, no one had ever pointed this out to her or to her associates. This morning, NPR had a UK author commenting on this very subject -- he has published a book on homonyms, Whose Who's (my guesstimate), a clever title indeed. (He was asked to distinguish between gourmet and gourmand, two words misued by NPR in an earlier broadcast, though, technically, these two words are not homonyms.) Hearing this, I could not help wondering. In Chinese, since all words are monosyllabic, practically every word has homonyms -- some may have close to 100 homonyms. Indeed, on Sunday, I was using my 3-character Chinese name to test a Chinese character-writing software. In each instance, some 40 homonyms popped out. But, interestingly, while writing in Chinese, many, I included, have no problem with homonyms. Come to think of it, in the course of writing/reading a 300-word essay in Chinese, one probably encounters close to 10,000 homonyms. And we have no problem. By comparison, English has a few homonyms, but they have caused, and are causing, problems practically every day. Interesting.
Posted at 11:45 am, Thursday, March 30, 2006