When Sun Jihai, a Chinese footballer who played over a hundred times for Manchester City, was asked what he found hardest about learning the English language, he talked about the word boot. For a footballer, you would think this would be a fairly straightforward word to learn and use. But then somebody offering him a lift said they would put his coat in their boot…
If a single word has multiple meanings, this can either be polysemy or homonymy, depending on whether it is a single word that has, over time, developed multiple meanings (polysemy), or multiple completely different words that just happen to be spelt the same (homonymy – or, more specifically, they are homographs, as opposed to homophones, which sound the same but may be spelt differently). Either way, if a single word can mean multiple, completely unconnected things, you can start to see why English is not always the easiest language to learn.
Boot
Boot (noun) – a strong outer covering for the foot; a shoe that extends above the ankle.
Boot (noun) – an enclosed compartment of a car for holding luggage, etc.
In American English, the compartment at the back of the car is referred to as a trunk, because a trunk (as in a large travelling chest) was often secured to the back of a car to allow clothes and other belongings to be transported. So, why does British English use the word boot instead? Seemingly, this dates to when horse-drawn carriages had a boot, which was the box that the driver sat on, but which was also used for storage. Why this was called a boot is unclear.
Other languages do not suffer from this confusion. In French, you wear bottes, but you put your shopping into the coffre of your car. As with American English, the word coffre also means a trunk or a chest. In Spanish, the words are bota and maletero respectively. Spanish shows good logic here. The suffix -ero is often used to denote something you put something else in or on; in this case, it’s the place you put your maletas (suitcases).
Pen
Pen (noun) – an implement for writing or drawing using ink.
Pen (noun) – an enclosure in which domestic animals are kept.
“I’ve just adopted a family of micro pigs.”
“Really? Where do you keep them?”
“In a pen.”
“Wow. Just how ‘micro’ are they?”
Again, there’s no risk of similar confusion for our European neighbours. The Spanish keep their domestic animals in a redil, but write with a bolígrafo or a pluma (the latter also being the word for a feather), while the German words are Füler or Stift to write with, but a Gehege for sheep (or micro pigs).
Skip
Skip (noun) – the act of passing over or omitting.
Skip (noun) – a large open container for transporting building materials.
Another pair of meanings that have absolutely no link at all. That said, if I bought (yet another…) second-hand record and found that there was a skip on it, I’d be pretty annoyed. Whichever meaning was being used!
Ring
Ring (noun) – a circular band, usually of precious metal, worn upon the finger as an adornment.
Ring (noun) – a telephone call (informal).
“So, have you spoken to Emily again, since your big argument?”
“I gave her a ring yesterday.”
“Do you mean you called her, or did you make up and ask her to marry you?”
“Actually, neither. She has this huge double garage with nothing in it, and she’s a big fan of boxing, so…”
The use of ring for a square area for boxing or wrestling presumably came about because the area was, at some point in the past, circular. But our European neighbours cannot accept this. They refuse to use their own word for the ring shape in the context of boxing, with both French and Italian using the English word ring for this purpose. The Spanish also say ring for boxing, though they also sometimes use the more accurate feeling: cuadrilátero.
Goat
It has been claimed (albeit only by me, in my blog post here), that the word ‘goat’ came about due to the bearded bovine’s ability to Graze On All Terrains. This a so-called backronym: a phrase devised so that its initial letters appear to explain an existing word. Very cool if true. Sadly, I made it up. The actual meanings of goat are:
Goat (noun) – a sure-footed bovid animal.
Goat (noun) – (informal) a lecherous man.
The use of goat to mean a lecherous man is probably linked to the Greek god Pan, who has the hindquarters, back legs and horns of a goat, and the torso of a human man, and who was famed for his sexual prowess. However, this meaning will become increasingly confusing in modern English, where the acronym G.O.A.T – for Greatest Of All Time – is increasingly used in the world of sport, and indeed more widely, as an expression of great praise. Youngsters already tend to write G.O.A.T. as simply ‘goat’, meaning that a reference to somebody as the goat will usually, nowadays, be a compliment, rather than an insult.
Language Quirks
It is easy to sympathise with Sun Jihai and his boot confusion. Homonyms are just one example of the many quirks of our language that must make learners of English bang their heads on the table. I discuss plenty more in the grammar section of my blog here – feel free to take a look!
