why do the words live and live mean diffent things but are speltthe same?

e.g i live in a house

i went to a live show

read and read

because a long time ago in a board meeting far far away, the people making up the English language were all sitting in a hot stuffy room in the middle of summer. Language maker upper number1 wanted to go the pub with Language maker upper number2. Language maker upper number3 had kids and would soon need to pick them up from school.

 

They were really busy trying to think of new words that weren't to difficult to pronounce. Language maker upper number1 suggested uive but even he couldn't pronounce it. Language maker upper number2 suggested liver but they already had that and then Language maker upper number3 suggested live but as she was eating a sweet it came out a different way and they all said thats great, rather than thinking of new words we will just use words that alrready exist but say they are pronounced differently.

 

Honestly this is all based on really facts made up in my own head.

 

i like it sounds ok to me well done

because english is such a cool language. the words in your examples are called:

 

homographs: spelled the same but pronounced differently with different meanings.

 

not to be confused with:

 

homophones: words pronounced alike but different in meaning and possibly spelling

 

synonyms: words or expressions that have the same or nearly the same meaning in some or all senses

 

antonyms: words of opposite meaning

 

ain't english great?

 

alasdair

at least someone knows what they are talkin about i will sleep better now