There’s this thing called word sense ambiguity. A “word sense” is a meaning, and many words have more than one; “word sense ambiguity” is the case of a word in context (as opposed to in the “lexicon,” or “mental dictionary”) having more than one possible sense. In practice, a word in context has as many possible senses as there are for that word in the lexicon, so: many words are always going to be ambiguous.
Does that mean that it’s not possible to recover the correct sense? Not at all. In fact, humans are so good at “resolving” word sense ambiguity that we rarely notice that it’s there, even though we experience it almost constantly. For computers, though–that’s a different story. Word sense ambiguity is a problem for any computer program that tries to do things with language. What to do? Well, mostly, people try to get their programs to take advantage of context in some way.
Some approaches to this problem, known as word sense disambiguation, take advantage of what’s known as the one sense per discourse hypothesis. Said hypothesis postulates that in any given discussion, an ambiguous word will only have one of its meanings. So, if you can figure out that in a given conversation the word bank refers to the land along the side of a river, then you don’t even have to consider the meaning place where you keep money for the conversation as a whole. Figure it out one time, and you’re done for the remainder of that “discourse.”
I spent most of the 1980s in the US Navy. The music that we were listening to in those days: Pat Benatar, Joan Jett, REO Speedwagon, Berlin. But, the classics, too: In the Navy (Village People), Navy Blue (Diane Renay)… ay, matey, there’s the rub. See, in the single song Navy Blue, there is a play on the word blue.
- navy or navy blue is a color. It’s the color of what we call in the Navy our “dress blues,” which for enlisted men means the “Cracker Jack” uniform, which in fact is a hell of a lot more black than it is blue–but, whatever.
- blue means something like mildly sad, mildy depressed. In French, a rough equivalent of the phrase to be blue or to have the blues would be avoir le cafard.
One discourse, two senses: a counter-example to the one sense per discourse hypothesis.
To be fair, I should point out that Gale et al. never claimed that the one sense per discourse hypothesis was an absolute–it’s more of a heuristic. They reported it to be true 98% of the time or so–but, not always. Still: I must point out the shameful lack of attention to Diane Renay’s #6 hit in their classic paper. For shame, for shame, for shame.
Here’s a link to the song. Scroll down for the full lyrics with explanations of some of the obscure military terminology and terms of romance, and don’t forget to buy a sailor a drink today–he’s serving his country, unlike, say, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump…
Navy Blue
Sung by Diane Renay, lyrics by Bob Crewe, Bud Rehak, and Edward Fluri
‘Cause my steady boy said “Ship ahoy”
And joined the Nay-ee-ay-vee
- steady boy: old term for boyfriend with whom you have an exclusive relationship.
- ship ahoy: old mariner’s term used to hail a ship
And let me be his girl
But first he had to do a little travelin’ around
And see the whole wide world
- to settle down: to establish a permanent residence
- girl: in this context, ‘girlfriend’
‘Cause my steady boy said “Ship ahoy”
And joined the Nay-ee-ay-vee
And a souvenir
A walky-talky wind-up little China doll
That says “Wish you were here”
- wish you were here: stereotypical text written on a postcard when you’re too lazy to write anything substantive
‘Cause my steady boy said “Ship ahoy”
And joined the Nay-ee-ay-vee
A forty-eight hour day
That boat he’s sailin’ on just better get here fast
‘Cause I can hardly wait
- pass: permission, sometimes written, for a military person to take time off. A weekend pass is from Friday evening to Sunday evening–also known as a “48,” although that doesn’t have to be on a weekend. A “96” is a 4-day pass.
- day in this song is sometimes transcribed as day-ate, i.e. date, giving the line the meaning of a rencard galant of 48 hours.
Blue, navy blue, I’m as blue as I can be
‘Cause my steady boy said “Ship ahoy”
And joined the Nay-ee-ay-vee
Blue, navy blue, I’m as blue as I can be
Zipf's Law 