Yall should remove some of these animal words and instead add different words for like the 5 different meanings of “spring”

  • fartsparkles@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    All tortoises are turtles (but not all turtles are tortoises) from a biology point of view. Tortoises specifically being exclusively land-based members of the turtle (Testudines) order. So there is a difference.

    And “spring” doesn’t really have different meanings - as per the root of the word, it always means some variant of “to burst forth”. There’s lots of different definitions for the word but they’re all rooted in the same place, from an etymology point of view.

    The season bursting forth from the winter darkness and cold, the metal coil as it bursts forth when released from compression, the source of water as it bursts forth from the ground, bursting forth someone out of jail, etc.

    Homographs are the real problem - when two different words, over time, become spelled the same.

    Sow, lead, close, bear. All have multiple etymologies where different words eventually became spelled the same. Those are the worst!

    English is a truly crazy mashup of Latin, Greek, French, German, Celtic, Norse and more.