1900. On the other hand, it reverted to the function of a jury in 1900 by
holding that trial by jury in s80 meant decision by a unanimous verdict as
common law then required, not by majority verdict as some statutory
provisions now permit.
Homonyms
His death, which happen'd in his berth, At forty-odd befell:
They went and told the sexton, and The sexton toll'd the bell.
174
A homonym can take several forms. Ambiguity arises with the form of
homonym
where two word have the
same spelling
but have
a different
meaning.
An example is "offensive," which has at least two meanings. One is
aggressive as in the phrase "offensive weapon”. A second meaning is
annoying, insulting or hurtful as in the sentence: "I found his remark
offensive”.
175
A second example is the word “bore” as illustrated by the
sentence: “Our mothers bore us”.
176
A third example is the word “fine” found
in the cryptic sign on the streets of New York: “Fine for Parking”.
177
Antilogies
John Train, a New York investment adviser and author has invented the term
“antilogy” to describe words that possess two meanings where one meaning is
the opposite of the other.
178
Some examples are “to cleave” which means to
cut and to adhere to, “to dust” which means to remove dust or to lay down
dust (illustrated by crop dusting), “inflammable” means that something can
burn and cannot burn, “to continue” means to keep doing something or to
delay doing it (illustrated by a court granting a continuance), and “to buckle”
means to fasten and also to fold up or fall apart, while “to sanction” means to
allow or to forbid.
179
While these are both cute and potentially sources of ambiguity they are not
likely to be a problem in practice. Given that ambiguity rests on two opposite
meanings, the contexts will usually make it abundantly clear which of the two
meanings is intended.
174
Thomas Hood "Faithless Sally Brown"
175
See R v Smith [1974] 2 NSWLR 588. Another illustration is the word “view”
which sharply divided the House of Lords in Wills v Bowley [1983] AC 57.
176
Moore (1981) p 181
177
Millett (1999) p 108
178
John Train “Antilogies” Harvard Magazine (November-December 1985) p 18,
John Train “More Antilogies” Harvard Magazine (March-April1986) p 17, Carter and
Burke (2007) pp 23-24
179
These examples
of “to dust”, “to sanction”, “to continue” and “to buckle”
are taken from Carter Burke (2007) pp 23-24
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