that's not English, that's pictures.
this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2025
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Homophones are definitely not the thing that makes English hard. By that definition, Chinese is downright impossible language.
This fails because the first one reads as "soldier" to most people, I'd say the vast majority of native English speakers would think "soldier", not that he's a Navy Seal. Especially because My first thought for a Navy Seal would be coming out of the ocean in a wet suit.
This fails because the first one reads as “soldier” to most people
Seems like you got hung up on that. Order shouldn't matter.
I got the three ‘seals’ at the bottom, though.
Same, but that made me assume the other ones have to seals as well and then the navy seal was right there.
I think it works well as a riddle.
It got me too. Even when I got to the animal seal I just assumed it was there for something else and the meme made no sense.
Order does matter. It comepletely ruined the flow. If i had already seen seal the animal, id be much quicker to land on seal for everything
From left to right, top to bottom:
Soldier, grommet, paint,
Wax stamp, person, seal.
Top right is lacquering, not paint. But yeah I thought the same lol
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At least those are not contradictory. Imagine being told that someone was dusting a room. Well that is removing small particles! But if you are dusting some icing sugar on a cake, you are adding it!
soldier ### brush stamp man seal?
They are all seals.
-
navy seal
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some kind of seal on a pipe
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wood sealant
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seal on a letter
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seal the singer
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seal (animal)
Thanks. English first language here and it went right over my head. But then the first was a soldier to me.
Same, which lead me to think the second was some sort of solder pot. So, then I thought there was some word close to soldier and solder for the third picture of the paint/stain brush that I didn't know.
I got the three 'seals' at the bottom, though.
Yep, it took me the last two seals for me to get the idea.
Technically, Seal the singer is also an animal.
British English took over for me, It was ‘obviously’;
Soldier, bushing, varnish.
Seal, seal, seal.
Couldn’t work out why the top row was with the bottom row at all.
(There are no ‘navy seals’ to us, it’s SBS - special boat service, like SAS but bad-asser, and more secret?)
Valve seal in an engine.
#2 is an engine valve stem seal
Stable genius
The wax seal doesn't work that way - the stamp should be inverted.
I think assuming a fuck up is a valid interpretation. Another explanation could be that stamps sometimes have a top that shows the final look and size of the stamp. I know that's not usual for a wax seal, but there's no rule saying you can't.
Mirrored?
Soldier, plug, stain, stamp, person, seal? I don't get it.
Seal, seal, seal, seal, seal, seal.
Soldier - navy seal Plug - to seal Stain - ?? Stamp - a seal (like Chinese imperial seal) Person - ? Seal - a seal
"Stain" - Sealing paint
Person - Seal (Singer)
Why use many word when one word do trick?
Too many words. Could you, like, narrow that down?
Words<word
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That’s not fair though as navy seals are named after the animal.
Also, you can use a word in different contexts, to seal wood and to seal something shut is similar actions
I think this might work better with 4 frames since 3 of these images show items that fall under the same definition for seal since their purpose is to prevent something from getting into/out of somewhere.
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Are homonyms/homophones more common in English? As a non-native speaker, I remember the vowel shift causing more trouble at first. Also, rules for shortening/combining words can be tricky. They're/their is the obvious example. But then there's won't, where the apostrophe doesn't simply substitute a letter in two words that work independently. And it's/its is very confusing, as possessive is normally also marked with 's. Is/are is a whole new thing if your native language doesn't distinguish.
If it helps, the possessive versions of other pronouns don't have apostrophes (hers, his, theirs, yours), so it makes since that the possessive of it also doesn't.
I've never thought about won't or ain't not working like the other contractions. How funny.
Try reading Japanese without kanji and see how rough it get with all the homophones.
They have 3 alphabets and its called a "writing system" because of it.
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Soldier, filter?, brush, wax, “there use to be a graying tower alone on the sea, you became the light on the dark side of me”, seal.
Possibly an issue caused by simplified English.
Solider, some kind of plug?, applying some kind of weather proofing, wax stamp, that guy who did a single with Adamski, seal.
They're all seals. The bad part is that this is really only 2 different meanings. The soldier is a navy seal but that's just named after the animal. The top middle is a seal to keep oil in a machine. The concept of sealing something applies to the the oil seal, the deck sealant, and the wax seal.
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Have you tried any form of Chinese?
3 instances of sealing. 1 OG, 1 copycat, 1 unoriginal dude. Down to 2 uses.
Chuckles in Estonian.
That's cute.
Whenever I see a seal I involuntarily start humming Killer.
Monolingual native English speakers are constantly being surprised about basic universal linguistic concepts, while proceeding to think it is exceptional to the only language they are familiar with.
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