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Phonological Ambiguities - What Are They Good For?

That's an interesting question. The first answer I have to that is that phonological ambiguities are fun and they always make me chuckle inside. Which is not something that one might easily say about a lot of other NLP patterns.

So I guess I better explain what a phonological ambiguity is for the newbies and then we can go on to wonder what they're good for, apart from keeping Silvia amused.

What is a phonological ambiguity?

It's when you say a word and it either has one or more meanings, as in ...

"She went to a weight loss clinic in London and lost 250 pounds."

... in which case, the pounds might be weight, or they might be english money.

Obviously, pound sounds exactly the same as pound, and it is spelled the same, so strictly it isn't really a phonological ambiguity as there is nothing ambiguous about it. But I thought I'd start there ... you gotta, somewhere ... With these phonological sameness words, much fun can be had. Such as this for example:

"Words are magic, so spell them with care!"

Right now there are many words that are not spelled the same but sound either the same, or similar, when you say them out loud. That's the phonological bit, it refers to the sound of the word.

One of my favourites is the expression relating to "old wives tails".

The expression is tales as in stories they tell, but I prefer tails because those old wives are definitely scaly and I'm sure their old tails are, too.

Another of my favourite phonological ambiguities is the one with "Worlds" and "Words".

"You can choose the wor(l)ds you inhabit ..."

And here we come to our first use of the phonological ambiguity, namely that of creating trance.

As the conscious mind isn't sure which one I mean, it pings back and forth between the different internal representations that unfold, depending on whether you choose worlds to inhabit, or to inhabit your own words.

This is a classic confusion tactic and trance inducer, urging the conscious mind to give up the hopeless battle, take a deep sigh, relax, and simply sit waaay back inside its worlds ...

Of course, you can play around more with such a fantastic set of phonological ambiguities such as world and word.

We take the last sentence,

"take a deep sigh, relax, and simply sit waaay back inside its worlds ..."

... and go to say ...

"inside its worlds, inside its many words, a world of words and words of worlds unfolding ..."

Whoa, that's making me woozy even writing that ...

So, yeah. Phonological ambiguities are good for trance inducing.

But I do believe they also have other uses.

One is to break up existing rigid structures of thoughts and internal represenations and implanting a new seed there, sometimes a seed of doubt, and that can be a very good thing, for example, if someone is convinced that they're useless, and you can plant a seed of doubt, you've done a good job.

For example, there exists a truly beautiful phonological ambiguity in the english language which is "prophets" and "profits".

Apart from the fact that it makes me chuckle, and it always does, without a fail, this is a handy device to bring some movement into the systems of people who are on the spiritual path and have trouble with money. Just by talking about walking the path of the pro(??)ts, you are loosening up a bunch of old entrainments, creating new internal representations and also, CONNECTIONS between the topics of spirituality and making money that may never have existed before.

So the path of the pro(??)ts is actually a path for the conscious mind to travel, a new path, which might bring new ideas, new vistas, an evolution, for short.

As an NLPer, I of course run into constant trouble with people who try to correct my grammar. There is a lucky phonological ambiguity that I use, namely the fact that grammar sounds a lot like grandma. Build that into the responses to those complaining that my grandma was bad, and much fun can be had all around.

One of my personal specialities is writing. I do a lot of teaching by writing, rather than talking; and if you consider written phonological ambiguities as a subsection of the whole topic, lots of further realms of possibilities open up.

A favourite written phonological ambiguity of mine witch I like a lot is to mix up which with witch. Witch is a lot of fun, especially if you like your magic and you've learned to spell with care, ieven if your grandma isn't always what other people might expect from an old wives tail ...

Alright, alright, that'll do!

I think we have the gist and a number of answers as to what phonological ambiguities are good for. I suspect and fear that they may have become a hobby of mine, as I'm always looking listening out for new ones ... Wink

Posted Nov 23, 2009   

 
 

 

 

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