> For people learning English as a second language, homonyms are among the more frustrating facets of our language.

The real frustration are the so-called "false friends", that are English words with a similar spelling as in that people's natural language but a totally different meaning (a lot of English words that have a latin root are Italian's false friends).

For example, "disgrace" is similar to the Italian for "misfortune", so if you tell me that you feel disgraced, maybe I think that you had some sort of misfortune.

> The fact that a single word can have several distinct meanings [...]

...may also lead to lots of laughs, as when "Spider bytes" are translated into Italian as "faster 8-bit-wide computer data".

> Furthermore, in English, such factors as the homonym problem can cause ambiguity

In Italian,too. Usually the correct interpretation depends on the context the word is expressed in. For example, the Italian for "root" ("radice") may mean a lot of things:
- the roots of a tree;
- a mathematical expression, as in 'squared root';
- in anatomy, the part that binds a tooth to its gum;
- the bare origins of something (a genealogy, an event, a problem,...)

> Consider what may be the simplest of English words: "I"

> - The square root of negative one.

We use 'i' (lowercase).
(but in electronics, when you calculate phase shift in frequency filters, you refer the same concept as 'j').

> - The set of numbers created by multiplying all real numbers by the square root of negative one.

'I' is also the set computed as the difference between R (real numbers as defined by Dedekind) and Q (fractions, or numbers in the form m/n where m and n are signed integers and n is never zero).

> - Any interval of numbers [a, b] on a number line.

We use 'I' also for open intervals like (a,b), (a, +infinite), (-infinite, b).

> - The location of an image created by reflection or refraction.

> Plus I probably forgot some.

An electric current.

It's always the context that rules...

AP.