When I read the words "yea" or "yeah", each spelling can mean two different things.
- An exclamation of joy, as in,
Yea[h] for ice cream!`
- Assent, like "yep" or "yes", as in,
Yea[h], Mom, of course I fed the dogs.
The two meanings not only have different pronunciation, but they're also not differentiable using context clues. For example, folks will commonly say "Yeah" as a one-word answer in a chat or a one-word comment in a forum.
Is there a better way to spell these so as to differentiate them without context? Or, perhaps, do these two different spellings have two different meanings, and I just didn't notice?