[Ads-l] perfect synonyms

[Jonathan Lighter]

At long last, two synonyms that are even more nearly perfect semantically
and orthographically than "gorse" and "furze."

They're not very exciting though:

"inalienable"

"unalienable"

Unlike "gorse" and "furze," this pair has the advantage of being routinely
interchanged when quoting from the U.S. Constitution.

OED has "un" from 1611 and "in" from 1647.

JL

On Fri, Dec 29, 2023 at 9:25 AM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> To return briefly: "whin" isn't so exact a synonym as "gorse" and "furze."
> Not only is it four, not five, letters; it shares no letters with "gorse"
> and "furze," and it doesn't appear till ca1400.
>
> Both "gorse" and "furze," though, come from Old English.
>
> JL
>
> On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 4:35 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: perfect synonyms
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> At 10:50 AM -0400 7/10/09, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>> >Years ago I revived the claim that the two most nearly synonymous words
>> in
>> >English are "gorse" and "furze."
>>
>> This pair also has a distinguished history in the philosophy of
>> language, going back (at least) 30 years to a famous paper by Saul
>> Kripke in "A Puzzle About Belief" (1979).  His point was that an
>> otherwise competent speaker of English could acquire both terms
>> through ostensive definitions without realizing that they refer to
>> the same thing, so that "X believes that gorse is gorse" and "X
>> believes that gorse is furze" could differ in truth value, which
>> might to taken to suggest that (on one view of synonymy) they're not
>> synonyms after all.
>>
>> >  Not only do they designate the same
>> >referent; they are both monosyllabic and even bear a minor phonetic
>> >resemblance.
>> >
>> >I can now reveal two comparably synonymous English words. They are
>> >so mundane, however, that no one will be impressed.
>> >
>> >The envelope please:
>> >
>> >"Flapjack" and "slapjack."
>> >
>>
>> The former no doubt arising from the latter on the occasion when John
>> Donne spelled "slapjack" with one of those f-ish-looking s's in an
>> otherwise obscure erotic poem.
>>
>> LH
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>


-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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