Sunday, July 17, 2016

Sound and Sense, 43



We’re moving next to the homophone: a word pronounced the same as another but differing in meaning, whether spelled the same way or not, as heir and air. So … contronyms are words that have contradictory meanings (sanctiion = approve and disapprove; homophones sound alike but to not mean the same—and often are not spelled the same, either.


cense (verb): to perfume (esp with a censer)
sense (noun): one of the five natural powers (verb): to detect without being told
cents (noun, pl): coins that each equal 1/100 of a dollar
since (prep and conj and adv): before the present time

Since yesterday he had not known
His sense of smell had sharpened so.
He now could smell a turkey bone
But also cents and nickels, Yo.

And when in church the censer censed,
He’d long since figured out the smell.
He wished that it were not dispensed
With such delight—oh, what the hell.

Since he was feeling very blessed,
He figured out he’d let it slide.
He knew his senses were the best—
He sensed the girl who’d be his bride.

But finances were not his skill—
And soon his family lived in tents
Upon a distant wooded hill
With their declining pile of cents.

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