*-nyms

[jack]

Is there a word that collectively refers to homonyms and homophones, etc, and if possible also pseudonyms :) other than "homonym"?

Is there a word that refers to words typed with the same letters on a phone keypad, like "me" and "of" and "dtaj" and "fuck"[1]?

I propose:

Telenym.
Phononym.
Buttononym.

The second is a pun on homophone[2]. The last should have a greek -- or at least foreign -- word for button or keypad instead. Can you suggests a good stem there? Or any other suggestions?

Is there an equivalent of pseudonym, nom-de-plume, anonym, pseudogyny, acronym or cognomen for an online name, handle, tag, screenname, and username?

Pseudonym nearly covers it, but a pseudonym is often (though by no means necessarily) anonymous. Can we revive cognomen, please? Or coin a new word. The list at the end are fine as words, but I find them insufficient because they don't have "nym" in as all names should :)

[1] I really love this new form of bowdlerisation. Phononym will also refer to words *formed* this way, such as "book" meaning "cool" and the swearwords produced!

[2] Are universal definition of homonym, etc? Wikipedia says:

Homograph -- Words spelled the same and different in meaning. ()
Homophone -- Words pronounced the same but different in meaning
Homonym -- One or more of the above. Some people say restricted to having a different root[3].
Heteronym -- annoyingly, nearly a subset of homonym! :)

But makes it clear many people/dictionaries changes those 'or's to 'ands', add restrictions that the words must be the same or different in spelling/pronunciation/meaning/root as well.

Do linguists have any standard use, or official use and colloquial use, or can I go on using wikipedia's definitions which fit with my conception, and occasionally say things like "A true homonym" for a homonym with different spelling and pronunciation, or perhaps for one with truly different roots?

[3] Or at least different route from the same original root :)

Hmm, my formatting is odd, but we'll live with it.

Comments

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

I like "phononym", though don't think you would get away with "dtaj" if you have predictive text. :-)

I am all in favour of reviving "cognomen", too.

[(Anonymous)]

Dtaj is actually a special case; it's the *first* letters on each key. We need a special name for that too.

Cognomen is cool. Usernames nearly *are* in that:

* They're adopted by the individual on coming of age
* Generally but not invariably slightly descriptive
* Sometimes inherited.

How long before we have official online identities and on passports I'll be "Jack Cartesiandaemon Vickeridge"? :)

But not realistically :(

[aldabra]

Oh, it has to be phononym.

I look forward to your post on nymphonyms, which are presumably something else again:

> YOUR PORN STAR NAME: (first pet and current street name)
> Misty St Andrews

Nymphophones are presumably what you phone them up on. And nymphononymous is what you are when you use your cognomen in chatrooms.

[aldabra]

And a particular chatline aimed at a well-defined segment of the market would need a marketing moniker, or a homonymphophononym.

Ahem. I'm meant to be looking up historical port statistics...

[sunflowerinrain.livejournal.com]

FOCAROFL!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

ROFL. Those are wonderful, please try to add them to our lexicon!

[jy100.livejournal.com]

Textonyms (http://www.pseudodictionary.com/word.php?id=21715).

They can be quite SILKY, as when we SIDE GOOD in a CUP, to eat a salad containing SHOE nuts and ARID, and then wash the SLAVES.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

ROFL. That's quite a good word, and, as is always really wonderful for a new word, has a meaning pretty clear from the etymology. Though (a) txtonym would be slightly funnier if slightly more painful and (b) Aw, it's not in greek at all :(

PS. I'm sorry, I think I should know who you are, but I'm not sure, can you remind me?

[cornute.livejournal.com]

"Is there an equivalent of pseudonym, nom-de-plume, anonym, pseudogyny, acronym or cognomen for an online name, handle, tag, screenname, and username?"

Internym?

Of course, I also find it hilarious when one of our clinics gets a bunch of freshly graduated doctors, who for the first few weeks answer their pages as "This is Greg" or "This is Greg Lastname" instead of "Dr. Lastname here."

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

Historical linguists are mainly interested in homophones (same pronunciation, different meaning and root (and perhaps different spelling)) rather than homographs (same spelling, different meaning and root (and perhaps different pronunciation)) because the relative recency of standard spelling in most languages makes the spoken form much more relevant to language change. Homophone and homonym are thus often used interchangeably in linguistics texts I'm familiar with, and I would use them like that myself when writing a linguistics text. I would find it odd for someone to talk of "true" homonyms as being something else (and did you actually mean a homonym with different spelling and pronunciation? In what sense would it be homonymous?). But I wouldn't use the term homonym to refer to polysemous words like poll in its meanings of "head" and "vote-count" (among others) because there's a single root within English there.

One of my favourite homonyms (in this case both homophonous and homographic) is cleave, with virtually opposite meanings of "divide, cut" and "adhere, cling". As it happens, there are two distinct roots involved here; the words would have been pronounced differently in Old English, and had (and still have to some extent) different inflections (compare clove, cloven with cleaved/cleft!).

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

That's about what I figured, thank you very much.

did you actually mean a homonym with different spelling and pronunciation?

Doh! No, sorry, I think I meant with exactly one of those, and also etymologically unrelated.

One of my favourite homonyms (in this case both homophonous and homographic) is cleave,

Oh yes, they're great. I was sure I've posted links to pages of contranyms on my journal before now, haven't I?

Distinct roots -- yes, that's interesting. Do you mean the old english words came from completely different sources, or were different evolutions of an original foreign word before that? Some contranyms seem to converge by pure coincidence (or a tendency to drift together words with similar meanings), but some seem to go the amazingly common volte-face[1] in meaning words often undergo. I can't decide which is more entertaining.

[1] Is there a term for that?

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

Do you mean the old english words came from completely different sources, or were different evolutions of an original foreign word before that?

They are native Old English words, inherited from Proto-Germanic, inherited from Proto-Indo-European - and the roots are distinct as far back as we can reconstruct! "Cleave" meaning "stick to" comes from a PIE root something like *gleibh- while "cleave" meaning "divide" comes from a root like *gleubh-. Other Germanic languages, ancient and modern, have distinct forms resulting from these roots too.

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

cleave... As it happens, there are two distinct roots involved here...

Can I ask what the exact OE roots are please? I'll probably just go and forget them, but right now I'm feeling knowledge thirsty :)

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

Sure :-) The "dividing" one is from OE cle:ofan (I'm using a colon instead of a macron there) which was a Class 2 strong verb (i.e. with principal parts cle:ofan - cle:af - clufon - clofen) cognate with ON klju:fa. The "adhering" one is from OE clifian/cli:fan which were two variants of the same root, producing in OE a weak verb (i.e. with dental suffix in the past tense forms) and a Class 1 strong verb (with parts cli:fan - cla:f - clifon - clifen) respectively, cognate with ON kli:fa.

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thank you!

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

Random points:

1) I think of a homonym as more of a homograph than a homophone, but maybe that's just me...

2) Pseudonym is literally a false name - I don't really think of it as anonymous myself, but again maybe just me...

3) Why do you want to use cognomen as an equivalent? A 'cognomen' is sort of a 'with-name' or 'name-together' or something, and in Roman times it's really a qualifier to the rest of your name. Like, 'Oh, you're Gaius Iulius *Caesar*, I thought you were Gaius Iulius Somethingelseius[1], who's a member of your wider family but obviously not you'.

[1] This would work better if I could think of two people with the same nomen but different cognomina... but my head is frazzled and a quick scan of the whole of Roman history is slightly beyond me atm ;)

4) Is there a word that refers to words typed with the same letters on a phone keypad, like "me" and "of" and "dtaj" and "fuck"[1]?

You just wanted something that was an X of 'fuck' but couldn't think of one, could you? :)

Seriously though, I suggest 'homotype' :)

5) There should be a word for when a word is composed of the same letters as another word and therefore an easy typo for it - my most frequent pair is 'Troy' and 'Tory' :)

when a word is composed of the same letters as another word and therefore an easy typo for it

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Acronym. Were you joking or not? :)

Re: when a word is composed of the same letters as another word and therefore an easy typo for it

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

Huh?

Re: when a word is composed of the same letters as another word and therefore an easy typo for it

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

*Anagram*. I am an idiot too :)

Re: when a word is composed of the same letters as another word and therefore an easy typo for it

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

Speak for yourself ;)

But I don't really mean 'anagram' - I mean, you'd have a job typoing 'editors' for 'sortied', wouldn't you? I mean 'anagram that is particularly prone to typoing' :)

And hey, reply to the cognomen bit! ;)

Re: when a word is composed of the same letters as another word and therefore an easy typo for it

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

True. A slight anagram :)

And sorry, I felt I had to say that bit, but I'm just off to CTS -- I'll reply to everything else later. Email me if you're bored ;)

*hugs* xxx jack

Re: when a word is composed of the same letters as another word and therefore an easy typo for it

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

Ah, CTS... Shame I can't come, but I'll try really hard in following weeks, honest ;) Have fun :)

I have your email, but I have to run off now. Hopefully I'll get to it tomorrow :)

*hugs* xxx Pippa

Re: when a word is composed of the same letters as another word and therefore an easy typo for it

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

1. Oh, interesting -- vyvyan implied the other way round iirc. Myself I'd have to think about it, whichever was used.
2. Ah, fair enough; what uses would you think of it? I think of that as the original meaning, but in my mind -- and I think more so in most peoples -- it's generally associated with criminals and authors, who generally do want their name and pseudonym separate, so I've come to expect that.
4. Ooh, I like that one too. And it sounds ever so slightly dirty -- ooh, homotype me, baby -- which words for the naughty words.

OK, I'll stop teasing now ;)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

3. I love Somethingelseius, I want to be called that...

The wikipedia entry was a bit brief and you're probably more accurate -- you know, you should edit some of these, you could definitely improve them -- but it says:

"Because of the limited nature of Roman names, the cognomen developed to distinguish branches of the family from one another, and occasionally, to highlight an individual's achievement, typically in warfare"

It also says "The term is also occasionally seen in modern times as an obscure synonym for nickname or epithet," which is probably where I got that habit from.

By the times I normally read about cognomen were inherited like a family name but more specific, is that right? And occasionally someone would be granted a special one? *How* occasionally? And when they first became to be used, how common were they? How common was inheritence vs. nicknaming then?

I was thinking of names that are *normally* personal nicknames and *occasionally* inherited, instead of always inherited and very very occasionally granted, and thought this was similar enough to some uses of cognomen to use it.

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

Is there a word that collectively refers to homonyms and homophones, etc, and if possible also pseudonyms :) other than "homonym"?

How about "words"?