Friday, September 30, 2016

Sound and Sense, 2-30


Time for more instances of the homophone: a word pronounced the same as another but differing in meaning, whether spelled the same way or not, as heir and air.

1. lacks (verb): 3rd person singular of lack—to not have something; to not have enough of something; (noun): the state or condition of not having any or enough of something
2. lax (adj.): not careful or strict enough;  (noun) abbreviation for lacrosse, that outdoor game with sticks and running people a ball and a net

“You know what this poor college lacks?”
He asked while drinking to the max.

“It needs more lax, that awesome sport.”
He waited for some wise retort.

“The students here ARE lax,” he heard.
He looked to see who’d said that word.

He saw a prof just standing there—
The beard, the book, the unkempt hair.

“You’re all TOO lax,” the guy went on.
“You drink each day from dark to dawn

And never even take a look
At homework—or a classic book—”

But that's as far as he would get:
The others stomped him—oh, you bet!—

Then sat back down there at the bar.
“That prof down there was too bizarre,”

The first guy said. “He’ll never learn.”
They later burned him. Ashes. Urn.

Then buried him beneath a tree
For speaking so, well, thoughtlessly

About the sport of student kings
’Bout books and other retro things.

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