A.W.A.D. - Contradictory Words

When you sanction a project, do you approve of it or disapprove? Should one be commended for oversight (watchful care) or reprimanded for oversight (error or omission)? When you resign from a job, do you leave it or re-join (re-sign) it?

When a proposal gets tabled, is it being brought forward for discussion or being laid aside? Depends on which side of the pond you're at. If the former, you're in the UK; if the latter, you're in the US.

I call them fence-sitters. They sit on fences, ready to say one thing or its opposite depending on which side they appear. I'm not talking about politicians. These are words, known by many names: autoantonym, contranym, self-antonym, enantiodromic, amphibolous, janus word, and so on.

Sometimes it's a result of two distinct words evolving into the same form (cleave from Old English cleofian and cleofan) but often a single word develops a split personality and takes on two contradictory senses. All of us have a bit of yin and yang and these words are no exception. The context usually provides a clue to help us understand the right sense in a given place. Look for more such words in AWAD this week.

cleave
PRONUNCIATION: (kleev)
MEANING: verb tr., intr.:
1. To split or divide (past tense: clove or cleft or cleaved; past participle: cloven or cleft or cleaved)
2. To stick, cling (past tense and past participle: cleaved)

ETYMOLOGY:
Sense 1: From Old English cleofan. Ultimately from the Indo-European root gleubh- (to tear apart) that is also the source of glyph, clever, and clove (garlic). And that's also where cleavage, cleft palate, and cloven hooves get their names from.
Sense 2: From Old English cleofian.

continuance
PRONUNCIATION: (kuhn-TIN-yoo-uhns)
MEANING: noun:
1. The state of continuing: remaining in the same place, action, etc.
2. An adjournment of a court proceeding to a future day

ETYMOLOGY: From Anglo-French continuer, from Latin continuare, from continere (to hold together), from com- (together) + tenere (to hold).

asperse
PRONUNCIATION: (a-SPURS)
MEANING: verb tr.:
1. To spread false and malicious charges against someone
2. To sprinkle with holy water

ETYMOLOGY: From Latin aspergere (to sprinkle), from ad- (toward) + spargere (to strew).

copemate, also copesmate
PRONUNCIATION: (KOP-mayt)
MEANING: noun:
1. An associate or friend
2. An opponent or adversary

quiddity
PRONUNCIATION: (KWID-i-tee)
MEANING: noun:
1. The essence of someone or something
2. A trifling point

ETYMOLOGY: From Latin quid (what) which also gave us quidnunc and quid pro quo.

ETYMOLOGY: From French couper (to cut), from Latin colpus (blow), from Greek kolaphos (blow with the fist) + mate (fellow).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Interesting Aftermath a From Season Five of "MasterChef"

Image
Do I agree with this? You will have to read it first and decide for yourself. I had long since made up my mind before finding this article. MasterChef Season 5 Fixed: Courtney Lapresi Won Finale After Getting Preferential Treatment – Former Stripper Favoritism BY  STORMY ELIZABETH  ON SEPTEMBER 23, 2014 "They say if you can’t take the heat, you should get out of the kitchen, but what if you like it hot? If you’ve been watching  MasterChef this season 5 , you may have noticed that one contestant in particular seems to  be “winning” challenges  when her dishes don’t seem to be quite up to it.  Courtney Lapresi  has been billed as an “aerial dancer” on the show. So what exactly is that, you ask? It’s a fancy word for stripper. You may term what she does as burlesque, but nekked is nekked and she takes off her  clothes  when she dances, so you have to call them as you see them. Plus is it really fair that she’s up for a MasterChef win aft
Read more

A.W.A.D. - 14-Letter Words, 14-Letter Definitions

Back in 1994, when I founded Wordsmith.org on a Pi Day (March 14), I had no idea that one day we'd be celebrating its quadridecennial. Here's what the last 14 years look in numbers: So far we have sent out 3,782 unique words and 297 AWADmail compilations to 640,000 present subscribers in 200 countries, that is more than 1.6 billion pieces of email. Well, this week we're seeing all things 14. We'll feature words that are 14 letters long, and define each of them in 14 letters. acritochromacy (uh-KRIT-o-kro-muh-see) noun Color blindness. [From Greek akritos (undistinguishing) + chroma (color).] tintinnabulate (tin-ti-NAB-yuh-layt) verb intr. To ring; to tinkle. [From Latin tintinnabulum (bell), from tintinnare (to jingle).] tinctumutation (tinkt-myoo-TAY-shuhn) noun Change of colour. [From Latin tinctus (a dyeing) + mutation (changing).] Brobdingnagian (brob-ding-NAG-ee-uhn) adjective Of gigantic size. [After Brobdingnag, the fictional region where everything was enormous
Read more

An Interesting Wife Swap...

Image
I'm catching up on our Wife Swap recordings. I'm watching the epiode Burroughs/Padovan-Hickman one that aired on 17 April 2009. The one I watched just before was really quite satisfying - the families both learned a lot and seemed to really take it to heart. This one, however, is back to the familiar mold of putting families that are so totally diametrically opposite families together that they almost can't get along. This is interesting, though, because the Padovan-Hickmans have electricity but don't use it, don't flush often, go for a week without showering and then the whole family uses the same bathwater... I can see where that would be hard, especially for me in that I have very oily skin and hair and would look rather wretched after the next day. But the family themselves are very likable and fun, the father looks more like a kindly grandfather, but really is quite intelligent and pleasant. I would have trouble with the clean thing and I'd miss my iPod
Read more