Playing With Polysemy

Polysemy differs from homonymy because polysemes are etymologically related words. Homonyms are words that have unrelated meanings.

The very talented Christian Yoder has had a lot of fun playing with polysemy.

ORDER IN THE COURT - When you are ready, here are some examples from his tumblr blog:

WORDPLAY

Polyseme “Order”

ORDER #2
A Soldier
orders in
orders out
orders with
orders without
orders for
orders from
and through
when ordering
from a composite order
of all orders.

ORDER #3
A judge abided by
his order stating that
with order and
for order are
under order
within order and
amid order
according to order.



ORDER #4
The orderly sergeant
calls to order
the order of battle
or the order of arms.

ORDER #5
The ordained order
take holy orders
in the order of worship
which is orderly ordered.
from the ordered mass.

ORDER #6
The order losers
buy order ware
from the order board
or order bill.

ORDER #7
The ordered class
keep order
in ordering orders
by the order paper.

Order numbers 2 -3 Copyright © 9/10/1983 by Christian M. Yoder

Order numbers 4 -7 Copyright © 7/22/1983 by Christian M. Yoder

Just out of curiosity, did anyone else notice that ORDER #1 is missing and that the copyright dates are not in order? I wonder if his blog is out of order.

Pragmatics and Crossword Puzzles

Where crossword puzzles are concerned, pragmatics can be viewed as the ability of the solver to interpret correctly the meaning or sense the constructor had in mind when writing a clue. When a clue appears as a single word without other words to give it a context, the puzzle itself can be thought of as the context. Oftentimes, even a multi-word clue can leave open more than one interpretation of the meaning or sense of the clue and this is part of the art of writing clues.

A constructor can intentionally use a vague expression in a clue to challenge the solver by not giving an appropriate amount of information. Ambiguities, too, are used in a similar way because the possible alternative denotations provide the challenge. With homonyms, it is specifically homographs that pose a problem to solvers because in written language they can not be distinguished without context, whereas homophones can. Polysemes are similarly problematic as they too have the same spelling for different senses of a word.

A perfect example of how a constructor can creatively mislead a solver even with some contextual information would be the homographic clue; bank deposit. The answer could be cash if the referenced bank is a financial institute or silt if the referenced bank is a river bank. An example of misleading with a one-word clue using a polysemic word is the clue; hire. The answer could be engage or employ. With both examples each possible answer has the same number of letters and each of the answers would be acceptable for the clue. It is in instances such as these that a solver must also take into consideration answers from the crossing clues in the grid to help them choose the best response.