Sunday, January 14, 2007

The Star of David is a Homoform

I asked on Yahoo Answers:
How do we call the same shape when it has more than one meaning? Can you give an example?

On the details question I explained:
When the same word has different meanings we call it a homonym.
My example: The Star of David is a shape that has different meanings in different cultures...

In a few hours I got the following answers:
Garypopki:
The symbol that was appropriated by the Nazis, the swastika, was an old an honorable one before the Nazis dishonored it. It was used as the logo of some European beer, but after the Nazis made it famous, the beer company changed its logo.

Rammohan:
Cross is used in churches and it has a different meaning when you see it in the hospital.

lubylou91:
Oblongs and rectangles. the natzi symbol was also a sacred hindu thing or something like that. I don't understand this question!!!

carebears
How about "O"? Can be used as a circle, a zero, the alphabet O.

I chose the first answer as best and rated it 3 out of 5. In the feedback section I wrote:
Very good example but no name - I'll have to invent one myself - I'll call it a homoform.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You should've called it 'homomorph', because 'homo' and 'morphos' are Greek, but 'forma' is Latin.

Just a thought.

Craciun Lucian.