Synonymy avoidance

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 15:59:17 -0800, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM> wrote:

>I was told in junior high that there are "only two true synonyms in the
>English language," and that they are "gorse" and "furze."
>
>The notion seems to be that "true" synonyms share the identical
>denotation, are of the same syllabic length, belong to the same level of
>discourse, and seem to share virtually identical associations.
>
>This is, of course, a somewhat tendentious definition of "true synonyms,"
>but "gorse" and "furze" come a lot closer than most. "Whin" might be
>considered a third synonym, but it's not as rough-sounding as the others.

The Chambers Dictionary (famed for its distinctly unhelpful definitions)
has these entries:

FURZE: whin or gorse.
WHIN: gorse, furze.
GORSE: furze or whin, a prickly papilionaceous shrub. [aha!]


--Ben Zimmer