homonyms.

it’s a shame that self-flagellation sounds so much like self-flatulation, which is not actually a word, but sounds too close to the word flatulence for people to not hear it and want to start giggling.

because one of those word-phrases could be used with regularity in my life as precisely describing a scenario in which i figuratively find myself.

and the other one, not at all.

so, both words (two-word hyphenates?) are out of the running for daily usage. bon voyage.