A linguistic fancy

[drwex]

Assertion: there are word-pairs in English that differ in meaning, but are spelled the same, except one of the pair is capitalized. We rule out pairs where the words are obviously of the same origin, e.g. Buffalo (city) and buffalo (intimidate/awe). Both come from the animal also known as the bison.

Intuitively it seems like there should be a large number of such pairs, but
Polish (people from Poland) and polish (to give a shine to)
Moor (ancient Arabs) and moor (a marshy type of land)
Reading (city name) and reading (the act of consuming a book)


Can my erudite readers come up with more such pairs?

ETA: WotW has two good ones in comments, and there's a whole class of people names that fit the rule but that I hadn't thought of.

Comments

[coraline]

are you invalidating all the names? Dick, Pat, and and Mat are ones that come to mind immediately...

[wotw]

I believe your example of a non-example is actually an example
of an example. It is my understanding that the city of Buffalo
takes its name from the French expression meaning "beautiful
water" and has nothing to do with the bison.

[wotw]

Mosaic (related to the prophet Moses) and mosaic (made of small tiles)

[wotw]

Tangier (city in Morocco) and tangier (more tangy)

[wotw]

Chad (African country or man's name) and chad (hanging shred of paper)

[wotw]

Not to mention Warren, John, Jack, Norm, Mike, Tony, Drew, and Mallard.

Also Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen and Comet.

[wotw]

Conjecture: Men's names are far more likely to be common words than
women's names are. Reindeer names even moreso.

[awfief.livejournal.com]

and Brad and brad too. :)

This reminds me of when I was about 9 and playing Scrabble with my family, and I'd put down a proper noun (I forget what the word was at this point). My brother said, "you can't use proper nouns!" I asked what that was. He explained, "it's like a regular noun but the first letter is capitalized, like countries and stuff".

To which I replied, "but the letters are ALL capitals!"

'cause in Scrabble they are. :)

[awfief.livejournal.com]

OMG THE SCRABBLE BOARD IS YELLING AT ME!

[goddessfarmer.livejournal.com]

I believe that chad has its root in Chad, after the person who invented that style of ballot.

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

Brad (man's name) vs. brad (small nail)

Romance (family of languages including French, Italian, and Rumanian) vs. romance (love story)

Constitutional (relating to a meta-law document) vs. constitutional (brisk exercize)

Herb (man's name derived from Herbert) vs. herb (aromatic greenery used in cooking)

That's all I got for now.

[drwex]

I hadn't thought of common names. It's true that they can be fit to the pattern, especially if you allow nicknames.

[drwex]

Oh, and reindeer, like many other animals, are named for the thing in question. Race horses and show dogs being somewhat extreme examples of the phenomenon. So I'd disqualify that group.

[drwex]

That's an excellent one!

[unseelie.livejournal.com]

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo

[drwex]

That's stretching it slightly, since you're using a word that's still not particularly English, but I'll grant it.

[drwex]

I'm pretty sure that the Romance languages were so named because of their association with romance, the concept.

Constitutional, as in the walk, is related to a person's constitution, which I believe is the same root formation. I'd have to go to the OED for that one.

See above about names.

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

No, "Romance languages" were so named from their derivation from Roma's imposition of Latin on their local tongues.

[drwex]

I think that's an urban legend. Here's what Wikipedia has to say on the matter:

Most popular accounts hold that the name "Buffalo" is a corruption of the French phrase beau fleuve, "beautiful river," a phrase supposedly exclaimed by French explorers upon seeing the Niagara River, but this theory is contradicted by primary sources.

[drwex]

Insofar as I can count on Wikipedia, they give a different etymology. So I'll grand Chad/chad as a good pair.

[drwex]

OK, so that makes Romance/romance a good pair.

[wotw]

How do you know what Santa was thinking when he named his reindeer?

[wotw]

K2 (mountain in the Himlayas) and k2 (functor in algebraic k-theory).

[wotw]

I (myself) and i (a square root of -1).

[wotw]

May (a month) and may (is allowed to)