Homophones at Kameido Tenjin Shrine 亀戸天神と同音異義語

Japanese follows English.　英語の後に日本語が続きます。

Japanese has many homophones, and I found two of those at Kameido Tenjin shrine in Tokyo. 

Kameido Tenjin shrine 亀戸天神

Kameido Tenjin and Tokyo Skytree 亀戸天神とスカイツリー

Kameido Tenjin shrine is known for enshrining Michizane Sugawara (845-903), a Japanese scholar, poet and politician worshipped as the god of learning, and that's why Eurasian bullfinch is special for this shrine because its Japanese translation in a Chinese character "鷽" looks like "學," meaning learning. The shrine has a wooden sign (below) which says "Eurasian bullfinch brings happiness."  

A wooden sign about Eurasian bullfinch (uso) 鷽（うそ）の木札

So, isn't it natural that, when seeing the bird below, I thought it was a Eurasian bullfinch? But it's not. This is a heron. 

Heron 鷺（さぎ）

Just standing still..... じっと立ってました｡｡｡

So this shrine has a Eurasian bullfinch and a heron, but here is a problem. Both "Eurasian bullfinch" and "heron" are homophones in Japanese, that is, "Eurasian bullfinch" is "uso" in Japanese, which also means "lie" while "heron" is "sagi," which also means "scam." In other words, the following two sentences are pronounced the completely same in Japanese: 

- This shrine has a Eurasian bullfinch and a heron. (kono jinja niwa uso to sagi ga aru)

- This shrine has a lie and a scam. (kono jinja niwa uso to sagi ga aru)

Some homophones are pronounced the same but with a slight difference in accents, such as "hashi," which is pronounced as "hashi" with the stress on "a" when meaning chopsticks while with the stress on "i" (i.e., "hashi") when meaning bridge, but these "uso" and "sagi" are pronounced the same for both meanings.

Then, my husband suddenly said with a smug look, "So, this shrine has not only a liar but a scam!"

Eurasian bullfinch and heron made me think about homophones from the linguistical perspective while giving my husband, who loves dad jokes, a chance to prove that he has a sense of joking. You think he proved it?😁 

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亀戸天神です。よく晴れていて、スカイツリーと青空とのコントラストがとてもきれいでした。そんな時見つけたのが「鷽（ウソ）」について書かれた木札、そしてじっと佇む「鷺（サギ）」です。

そしたら隣の男性がどや顔で言ったんです。「この神社には嘘（ウソ）つきと詐欺（サギ）師がいるんだ～！」 

私が言語学的問題を検討する横で、隣の男性（夫｡｡｡）は当該言語学的問題をおやじギャグ的観点から考えていたようです｡｡｡😁

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