Can you think of "invalid" words?

December 7, 2006 1:31 PM

In Chinese, the meaning of a spoken word can change depending on where stress is applied. Can you think of English words which embody this characteristic? I can only think of one at the moment: invalid.

What about in any other languages? I'm also interested in French and Russian, but please add any words you can think of in any other language.

posted by Clementines4ever to writing & language (37 comments total)

Heteronyms.
posted by vacapinta at 1:35 PM on December 7, 2006

I think you'll find plenty- noun/verb doubles for example- i.e., reject/reject, object/object, refuse/refuse, etc.
posted by baklavabaklava at 1:36 PM on December 7, 2006

Although I can't think of them offhand, there are other words like this in English.

The stress change between the two invalids is not the same as the four tones of Mandarin.
posted by b1tr0t at 1:38 PM on December 7, 2006

sorry, the verb refuse has a /z/; strike it
posted by baklavabaklava at 1:39 PM on December 7, 2006

Next question: what percentage of AskMefi posts have first comments as best answers?
posted by Clementines4ever at 1:42 PM on December 7, 2006

This question puts me in mind of an old joke:

English-language prof lecturing to class: "Unlike other languages, in English it is impossible to create a negative statement with two positive utterances."

Smart-ass in the back row, "Yeah, right."

But that sort of tonal distinction (to indicate mood) is not really what you mean, is it?
posted by deejay jaydee at 1:44 PM on December 7, 2006

Associate becomes a noun or a verb depending whether the final a is long or short.

In Spanish, papa can mean father, the Pope, or potato (though when written, the accents are different, and when it means potato, it becomes a feminine noun).
posted by nickmark at 1:45 PM on December 7, 2006

"envelope"
"read"
posted by bshort at 1:50 PM on December 7, 2006

Heteronyms aren't exactly what you're looking for, I don't think; what you want is words that are phonetically the same except for the place of a stress mark ("lead" to go first and "lead" the metal would be different when written out the same).

baklavabaklava's almost there, but reject/reject is more like "reeject"/"ruhject," and object/object is closer to "uhbject"/"awbject."

The only one I can think of is the import/import noun/verb pair, where the pronunciation is exactly the same save the stress accents.
posted by maxreax at 1:53 PM on December 7, 2006

Compact is not on the page vacapinta linked, but it was the first thing to pop into my head.

Maori has even stress (in the sense of loudness) but vowel length is very significant. Lots of words differ only in vowel length.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:58 PM on December 7, 2006

Recreation (RECK-reation; as in relaxing entertainment) and recreation (REE-creation; as in to redo something)?
posted by macadamiaranch at 1:58 PM on December 7, 2006

This is a bit more colloquial (and nitpicky) than your original request, but I've often be amused by the difference between the USAian pronunciations of defense (prounounced duh-FENCE), as in Department of Defense, and defense (pronounced DEE-fence), as used in sports.
posted by matildaben at 2:16 PM on December 7, 2006

Heteronyms aren't exactly what you're looking for

Did you actually click on the link? Most of the examples given are exactly what the poster is looking for.
posted by languagehat at 2:19 PM on December 7, 2006

Yeah, I did... that's why I used the lead/lead example. I (maybe incorrectly) assumed that the poster was asking entirely about words that are pronounced exactly the same except for how they're stressed--as he or she says, "depending on where stress is applied".

The definition linked to uses the first example of "lead" and "lead," two words that are in no way pronounced similarly, regardless of the stress involved. Even the others it uses ("affect"/"affect") change the stress but also change the sound of the word ("aff-ect"/"eff-ect")--therefore the words changes not entirely based on the stress (which, again, is what I thought the poster was asking for).

Admittedly, maybe I'm confusing it--the example the poster gives, "invalid," fails my definition (in-va-lid vs. in-vuh-lid--the middle vocoid is different). So, if invalid counts, than I suppose reject and reject do as well.
posted by maxreax at 2:29 PM on December 7, 2006

minute: my-newt vs min-it
posted by browse at 2:30 PM on December 7, 2006

And now I will present the present to you.
posted by the jam at 2:35 PM on December 7, 2006

there's a good selection in ruissian, since you ask: zamok/zamok; muka/muka i.t.d.
posted by londongeezer at 2:45 PM on December 7, 2006

There are only a handful of words (about a dozen) that you seek where a stress shift does not simultaneously produce a change in vowel: REpeat - rePEAT has a vowel change when the stress shifts, there are quite a few of those; inCITE - INsight has a stress shift but no vowel change and these are not so common in English. (and what B1 said about this being a non-parallel with tones).
posted by bluesky43 at 3:00 PM on December 7, 2006

the jam: Will you present that present in the present?
posted by blue_beetle at 3:00 PM on December 7, 2006 [1 favorite]

Maxreax: because unstressed vowels in English nearly always become schwas ("uh"), in pairs like object/object and reject/reject, the phonetic difference only exists because of the stress difference--so I count them as true heteronyms.
posted by Jeanne at 3:03 PM on December 7, 2006

Fair enough. But even then we can make a distinction btw. object/object//reject/reject and import/import, the latter of which changes literally only the stress (at least the way I pronounce it).
posted by maxreax at 3:11 PM on December 7, 2006

To clarify about Chinese and other tonal languages: the meaning of words doesn't change based on which syllable you place the emphasis on. It's based on the inflection of each syllable. Is it rising, descending, going down then up, staying steady? A one syllable word pronounced in isolation can take on different meanings depending on this inflection.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 3:17 PM on December 7, 2006

Here's one that doesn't involve a noun/verb pair (which are well-known for exhibiting that behavior): refer and reefer. Two different spellings, two different words-- but really the only difference is stress placement.
posted by bookish at 3:45 PM on December 7, 2006

Desert/desert (verb/noun)
posted by LeisureGuy at 4:00 PM on December 7, 2006

Since you asked for any other language, here are a few from Portuguese. sábia = wise, sabia (stress on the i) = knew, sabiá = a kind of bird. baba (first syllable stress) = drool, babá = nanny
the final "a" is schwa-like when it's not stressed.
posted by dmo at 4:20 PM on December 7, 2006

1. See also Richard Lederer's "Hymn to Heteronyms."
2. Other than capitonyms like Nice and nice, de-gas and Degas, can't think of any offhand in French. Russian has a few true heteronyms such as мýка (torture) and мукá (flour), зáмок (castle) and замóк (lock), дýша (showers) and душá (soul).
3. Ancient proverb: A sow who decides to sow wild oats is likely to reap piglets.
posted by rob511 at 4:33 PM on December 7, 2006

Dude? Dude. Dude!

You can have entire conversations with dude and inflection.
posted by Mitheral at 4:42 PM on December 7, 2006 [1 favorite]

Dude!

I find the juxtaposition of Chinese and Dude here to be amusing, as explaining the many subtle nuances of Dude to my wife, a native speaker of Chinese (who speaks English very well, but nevertheless as a second language), has been an interesting path.

My opinion is that you're not truly fluent in American English until you can have, as Mitheral says, entire conversations consisting only of the word "Dude."
posted by doorsnake at 6:08 PM on December 7, 2006

In Chinese, the meaning of a spoken word can change depending on where stress is applied.

That's not a very accurate description of Chinese. That would be like saying 'In English, the meaning of a spoken word can change depending on which vowel is used.'
posted by alidarbac at 8:10 PM on December 7, 2006

A word that changes pronunciation (and meaning) when capitalized: polish / Polish.
posted by SPrintF at 8:24 PM on December 7, 2006

Fuck!
posted by Pollomacho at 8:27 PM on December 7, 2006

unionized
posted by arialblack at 11:28 PM on December 7, 2006

Le vent est à l'est.
Tu as trois as dans la main.
Les poules du couvent couvent.
Nous portions des portions.
Un os, des os
.../...
posted by rom1 at 12:05 AM on December 8, 2006

Also not quite what you are looking for, but still entertaining: Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
posted by b1tr0t at 12:42 AM on December 8, 2006

I used to think these were called homographs, but the Canadian Oxford defines homographs by difference in origin, not pronunciation. “Heteronym” isn’t in there.

What you’re looking at in Chinese is tone, not stress.
posted by joeclark at 6:21 AM on December 8, 2006

Quite a few in Russian, but the first few that come to mind are мука/мука meaning flour if stress falls on the `а` and torture if stressed on the`у`; мат/мать meaning foul language/mother ; and быстро/бистро which means quickly/bistro and has an interesting story of reborrowing via the French. Those last two pairs aren't spelled exactly the same, but are pretty close when listening, with changes only in stress or palatalization.
posted by msbrauer at 7:59 AM on December 8, 2006

The unionized workers tried to coax the signal through the coax, but the would-be plasma remained unionized. ;)
posted by Myself at 6:55 AM on December 9, 2006