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Probably 'halberd.' If you planewalk to Krynn with some gunpowder from Oerth, canonically it won't work - the gods of Krynn don't like the stuff. That was 2e, though, and before the Dragonlance novels did some crazy stuff where the world got moved and the gods couldn't find it for a few years, or something like that. So, no arquebuses in DL
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
The Wanderer
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Not precisely a homonym, but my current least favorite in that vein - due to encountering it so often, in both directions - is "affect" vs. "effect".
The trouble is that both of them are valid as both verbs and nouns, in the same grammatical context, but they have such different meanings...
sparkthatbled
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Aside from my amusement at the idea of people using the name of a classic 80's videogame in regular conversation (Populous = Populace), I can't help but want to make a mention of a certain famous bit in the "classic" My Immortal...
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Silicon is a semiconducting metalloid. Silica is silicon dioxide (SiO[sub]2[/sub]: quartz and the main ingredient of glass). Silicone is an extremely broad category of compounds (polymers with the general formula [R[sub]2[/sub]SiO][sub]n[/sub], where R is any organic group), the most familiar of which to most people would be silicone rubber.
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The Wanderer Wrote:Not precisely a homonym, but my current least favorite in that vein - due to encountering it so often, in both directions - is "affect" vs. "effect".
The trouble is that both of them are valid as both verbs and nouns, in the same grammatical context, but they have such different meanings... I dunno. It seems to me that as verbs, the meanings of the two words differ primarily in degree. As nouns? Well, lemme put it this way, the only reason I know what "affect" means as a noun is that there was a psych major on a gaming board I used to frequent who used it that way a lot. Eventually (and I suspect, inevitably), he found himself obliged to explain what he meant by it. "Affect" as a noun is sufficiently obscure that I would expect that anyone wanting that meaning would make sure to get it right. I'm not so sure about people wanting to use "effect" as a noun.
I suggested in an earlier post that we could easily have another thread for not-homophones that frequently get confused. 'Prescribe" and "proscribe" are at the top of my personal list. They're antonyms (or nearly so), so without a larger context the reader doesn't actually know which one is meant.
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Er, to affect something is to have influence upon it. To effect something is to cause it to happen. You cannot effect concrete things, only states or events. They are quite different. And yes, most people using "affect" as a noun mean "effect".
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True. 'Affect' as a noun is a psychological term, as I recall.
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I swear, the next time I read a fic where someone keeps trying to "diffuse" tense situations....
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As opposed to "defuse", I imagine?
That's fair enough for that exact usage, where the verb is being applied to the situation - but I'm not sure it doesn't make more sense to "diffuse the tension" (i.e., cause it to thin out and become less dense) than to "defuse" it. At the very least, the metaphor works well enough that I'd have had a hard time judging which of the two was the correct usage in that context - and that's me.
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conscience/conscious - I HATE this one! But, my shoulder angel (conscience) says not to punch perpetrators out (knock them unconscious.)
Though not homophones, the tendency to use 'sentient' in place of 'sapient' is also annoying - an ant is sentient, so is a motion detector light switch (able to sense) but neither one is sapient (able to think.) Sweets sent-the-ant scurrying for the picnic, I'd say-pie-and jello should stay sealed.
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
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Digression:
ClassicDrogn Wrote:... an ant is sentient, so is a motion detector light switch (able to sense) but neither one is sapient (able to think.) ... Agreed for the motion-detector switch, but http://engineering.stanford.edu/news/st ... r-anternet]I'm not so sure about the ant...
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You might be able to make a case for a colony as a whole, but a single ant?
Besides, it facilitates the mnemonic.
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
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Again the Not Quite a Homonym department, there's at least one fanfic author out there who's prone to using "wondering" where the appropriate word is "wandering."
I've also seen "defiantly" for "definitely." Well, in some cases, if you squint really hard, you can make "defiantly" work, but I still have the impression that "definitely" was the intended word.
Also, what is it with people who apparently feel the need to "preform" their performances?
The Wanderer
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The reason that second one's so relatively common is a combination of a normal mistake with a spellchecker typo.
"Defiantly" is the obvious spellchecker suggestion for "definatly", which is a close enough match to the pronunciation of "definitely" - especially in accents where the penultimate syllable, "net", comes out closer to "nut" - that some people are going to come up with it in an honest attempt to spell the word.
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