We've been led to believe that at 12:23 AM 5/1/99 -0700, RadHaz wrote:
>If I may participate in something which I know very little about:
>I tried typing "san" (the honorific).
>I got these choices: (among about twenty others)

The syllable "san" in Japanese can mean of myriad of things, depending on
the kanji used.  Of course, since we can't "see" the kanji when someone is
speaking, the only way to tell which kanji (if any) is used, the Japanese
listener must listen to the entire context (or at least sentence) where it
is used.

The same is true for just about any other syllable in the Japanese language.

Of course, there will be times when there are syllables in a sentence
you've heard in its entirety, but still can't determine which one is meant,
since there might be a few that would make sense in the context.  These,
obviously, can be used as puns.

-- 
Glenn Wang <brief@ix.netcom.com>, http://www.netcom.com/~brief/
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