Polysemy (a word having multiple meanings) in languages

[Antariksh Bothale]

A couple of interesting posts about polysemy. Pasting relevant content here.

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2079
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2148

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A charge may be the load of explosive in a bullet or shell or an accumulation of electricity or some metaphorically similar force (a poem can carry an emotional charge); a charge may be placed on you in the sense of an obligation or duty; you can get a charge out of doing something exciting; being in charge of something means managing it and being in someone's charge is being in their custody; if you are the guardian of some young people they are described as your charges; the judge gives a charge to a jury; you can notice illicit charges on your credit card bill; there may be a charge for some service; a library has a charge on a book when its records show that it has been lent out; and if you commit a crime you may find a criminal charge brought against you.

How the hell do we manage with a word that has this many meanings? I really don't do lexical semantics, but I really am struck by the astonishing degree of polysemy in English: words that have multiple meanings, sometimes recognizably if distantly related (charge has an etymology going back to the same Latin root as the word car), but sometimes apparently a thousand miles away from each other conceptually. Prescriptivists get so red-faced furious about the idea that a word might develop a new meaning or function (that disinterested might pick up a second meaning "bored" alongside "unbiased", for example); but they never say a word about most of the cases of rampant polysemy in the dictionary.

Charge is not just ambiguous, having two separable meanings; it is multifariously, outrageously, promiscuously polysemous. What it suggests is that human languages do not strive to avoid ambiguity. They do not try to align words with meanings one to one. It follows (since things don't fall apart just because we have thousands of words like charge) they are not in danger of anarchy when a new word sense evolves. People don't just tolerate languages with multiply polysemous words, they seem to love them; they thrive on multiplicity of meaning. There are thousands of examples that show this. It is only the prescriptivist thickheads who cannot see what that means…

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What do support poles, staff positions, battery terminals, army encampments, blog articles, earring stems, trading stations, and snail mail have in common with billboard advertising, accounts recording, making bail, and assigning diplomats?

They are all senses of the word post. I will now tell you why I posted this post about post.

I really don't do lexical semantics, but I am often struck by the astonishing degree of polysemy in English: words that have multiple meanings, sometimes recognizably if distantly related, but sometimes apparently a thousand miles away from each other conceptually.

Spectre-7 below had the right observation, exactly what was in my mind (I'm so proud of you readers; you are so smart):

But how can that be? If post can mean all of those things, readers will get hopelessly confused! One word for one meaning! Prescriptivist rage!

Yesss! Exactly the point. Prescriptivists get so concerned, so red-faced furious about the idea that a word might develop a new meaning or function, and thus have two of them. Think of the stupid kerfuffle in the 1970s about hopefully as a modal adjunct, for example: the sky was supposed to be falling because in better to travel hopefully the adverb means "with a heart full of hope" but in Hopefully they'll win the same adverb means "it is to be hoped". (Look in recent editions of Strunk & White; the paragraph about hopefully as a modal adjunct there is a flailing, incoherent, repetitive sequence of howls of rage.)

And now look at what's happened to post without anybody objecting or even noticing. Noun uses and verb uses, and more meanings for both than you can shake a stick at (I didn't even list them all; I wasn't aware about the horseriding senses, so I didn't bother to copy them out of the dictionary). It is not just ambiguous; it is outrageously, promiscuously polysemous. Fence posts, army posts, the New York Post, blog posts, ambassadorial posts, post offices… And yet the sky does not fall.

Human languages do not strive to avoid ambiguity. They do not try to align words with meanings one to one. They are not in danger of anarchy when a new word sense evolves. People don't just tolerate languages with multiply polysemous words, they seem to love them; people thrive on multiplicity of meaning. There are thousands of examples that show this. It is only the prescriptivist thickheads who cannot see what it means.

Yes, thickheads. I know they won't like being called that; but hey, what do I care? I've shut off the comments area to new contributions now, so they can't log in and accuse me of being a leftist softy with no intellectual standards failing to stand up and fight against the decay of the golden tongue of Shakespeare etc. etc. blah blah blah. Let them squirm and rage and fume, with the smoke coming out of their ears. I don't care. They're just wrong.

I like a good distinction in senses as much as the next man, and I don't care for ignorant word choice errors at all; but I don't get in a stew about it when new senses finally catch on or take over. It's the way languages are, and the way they're going to be. You have to deal with it.