shoor lee

(shoor'l?)
Surely everyone knows the meaning of Shirley, but do they? By the end of this paper, surely we will figure out what Shirley exactly means, or what it doesn’t mean.
Surely and Shirley are homonyms. A homonym is a word like another in sound but different in meaning and spelling. This is just one example of many homonyms. In this case, surely is an adjective, and Shirley is a noun. Surely that can’t be right, when really—it is.
“Surely you are going to come with me to the party,” is something my mom would announce to my dad.
“My name’s not Shirley,” my dad would always reply in a serious voice and a stern, straight face. My dad has a weird sense of humor sometimes and likes to bug people. I know it always made my mom angry because she was actually trying to say something important or have a nice conversation.
This was a case where there was confusion between surely and Shirley. My mom had used the adjective surely, which means firmly, certainly, or undoubtedly. She was stating that my dad would certainly go with her to the party, almost saying it in a demanding or forceful state of mind. My dad, on the other hand, thought surely was used as the noun; Shirley as the noun is a girl’s name. If we go back to what my mom said and put a comma after surely, then it would become the name, and she would be getting his attention by direct address. Of course, my dad was only poking fun at the two ways of saying it. For all I know, he probably had asked whether she was referring to him as Shirley Jones or Shirley Temple.


Surely by now you should know the meaning of both. Whether you use Shirley as the name or surely in describing something, surely you will know which one to use, Shirley!