Me, thoughtfully: "I've forgotten something simple. What's the name for two different words that can mean the same thing?"
Mrs Fox, without missing a beat: "Lesbonyms."
Me: "That's-... no, pretty sure that's not it-HEY."
#synonyms
Chinese doesn't seem to have a lot of synonyms that are neither markedly different in connotation nor dialectical differences, so when I realize there's a pair of such synonyms that I do actually use interchangeably, my brain gets weirded out because it tries to figure out which one is the "actual" or "proper" one I use. I can only think of these atm:
- 星期 vs 禮拜, "week"
- 鐘頭 vs 小時, "hour"
They feel like there would be situations where using one for the other would sound wrong, but so far with all the examples I can think of, they seem entirely interchangeable
