ipl-logo

Concept Of Ambiguity

985 Words4 Pages
INTRODUCTION TO THE CONCEPT OF AMBIGUITY. Let us first understand the term ambiguity. A word a sentence or a phrase that has more than one meaning for at least two meanings is ambiguous in nature or is called Ambiguity. The let us take some of the very popular examples from our day to day life that are ambiguous in nature. The word ‘hard’ in English can have two meaning one is in relation to easy-hard and another meaning is in relation to soft-hard. In same manner the word ‘light’ can be interpreted as an adjective, that is light in weight. Another meaning of the word 'light’ is a noun, as in tube-light. Let us look at some more examples. Now let us look at Some examples of headlines: 'Kids Make Nutritious Snacks ', 'Eye Drops Off Shelf ', and 'Queen Mary Having Bottom Scraped '. What makes these headlines funny is that they are ambiguous. When a sentence is ambiguous, it has at least two different interpretations. For the examples above, the first sentence could mean that kids eat good food, or it could be interpreted as eating kids is nutritional. For the second, one could read it as buying eye drops off the shelf, while another sees it as an eye falling off a shelf. Finally, for the third one, it could be read that the boat Queen Mary is being cleaned, while another reading could be more comical as Queen Mary, a person, having her bottom scraped. Ambiguity can be found in everyday conversation and in literature. A sentence can become ambiguous just by a single word,
Open Document