Might not quite qualify as an auto-antonym, but I am entertained by the new use of "drop" which is increasingly common in ambiguous headlines, perhaps because the dual meaning enhances the clickbait level:
"Apple has dropped feature X" - they're revealed this new feature
"Apple has dropped feature X" - they no longer support this feature
Headline writers using 'dated' to mean a release date (of say a film or game) has been announced, I can't help reading as judgement that the unreleased item is already passé.
Even further from being an auto-antonym, but positive and negative meanings both related to time.
Cool site / fun list. But -- and I realize this is pedantic, though if ever there were a time/place for it, it's commentary on a grammar site -- I feel "resign" doesn't quite belong on it. Resign (to sign again) is pronounced with a soft "ess", while (to quit) uses a "z" sound; they're different words w/ different pronunciations that happen to share the same spelling. Doesn't that make them homographs? Is there a special term for this case, perhaps homographic antonym, or anto-homograph?
Yeah, but that's a really challenging line to draw diachronically.
For example, clip = to fasten originates from Old English `clyppan` (to embrace/clasp/surround), while clip = to cut originates somewhere Scandanavian, as in Old Norse' `klippa` (to clip/shear). Are those still homographs? I think a fair number of the list items are the result of convergent evolution.
It's a heteronym, see[1]. And etymologically they seem to be related, the sense "quit" dating back to the 14th century while the sense "sign again" a more recent addition, 19th century [2]
While we're at it, literally doesn't belong on it. Literally has exactly one meaning. Unsurprisingly, the wrong meaning is the opposite of the right one.
Still think this list would help every struggling learner of English.
The "figuratively" sense is just bog-standard hyperbole. Do you also object to "killed" in the sense of a stand-up comedian getting a lot of laughter during their act? Or "I just died of embarrassment!"?
Include me among those who find it frustrating, but the meanings of words are more or less acquired by convention, and I think my side has been outvoted on this one.
With all the political discussion about Britain recently, the table/table antonym described in this list has come up among my friends lately. In Britain, you "table" a motion to put it up for consideration. In the US, if a motion is "tabled" it is put off until later. Very closely related but directly opposite meanings makes for some confusing discussions, where you need to know the nationality of the writer to have any chance of understanding the statement.
Do many people really say "I could care less" instead of "couldn't"? I've never heard anyone say it, and the few times I've seen it used online the perpetrator has rightly been rounded upon.
If people do, what similar turns of phrase would they likewise mangle? "Well done son, I could be more proud", or "I'm completely thrilled, I could be happier", or "I'm at rock bottom, things could be worse".
-I could/couldn't care less: I feel this started out properly as "couldn't" and then people got lazy/used shortcuts in their speech. Very much like a "for all intentional purposes" type of phrase that has been incorrectly said
-Entree: again just speculation... I think the US usage of this may have come from European multicourse meals... depending on the number of courses, you may start with hors d'oeuvres, soup, salad, etc... then move on to a First (Entree) and a Second as mains, before moving on to the wrap up with aperitifs, coffee, dessert, etc. As restaurants become more popular and accessible to the lower/working classes, courses were consolidated, and what was once called Entree/opener as a first main dish became the primary course of the meal.
I take "I could care less" to mean "I could care even less about this than I already do, that's how little it matters to me", but that could just be me trying to rationalize a mangled expression.
> A number of language writers have suggested that “could care less” has a sarcastic reading, conveying something like “Ha! As if there were something in the world I could care less about.” There are some American Yiddish-inflected phrases that work this way, like “I should be so lucky!” (meaning “there’s no way I’m ever gonna be that lucky”) or “I should care!” (why should I care?). Even if “could care less” didn’t originate from a sarcastic intent, it matches up well enough with these other forms in the language to help give it staying power.
I particularly like this argument from this second link:
> The argument of logic falls apart when you consider the fact that both these phrases are idioms. In English, along with other languages, idioms aren’t required to follow logic, and to point out the lack of logic in one idiom and not all idioms is…illogical. Take the expression “head over heels,” which makes far less sense than “heels over head” when you think about the physics of a somersault. It turns out “heels over head” entered English around 1400, over 250 years before “head over heels,” however, the “logical” version of this idiom hasn’t been in popular usage since the late Victorian era.
As an American English speaker, I've only used "overlook" as a verb to mean "miss noticing entirely", but as a noun related to "examine", for instance a "forest overlook" might be a scenic turnout on the side of a road that provides a view where the forest could be "examined".
Similarly we use the word "oversee" for examining/observing... however "oversight" has taken on the role of an Auto-Antonym. We often use "oversight" and "lack of oversight" to mean the same thing, that something was missed due to carelessness... but we also use it to mean "supervision" that should prevent careless omissions from happening.
"Terrific" used to be a synonym for "terrible", and "awesome" for "awful". Even the word "bad" has a slang meaning of "good".
In Japanese 適当 is supposed to mean "appropriate, proper", but in practice it almost always means "unserious, sloppy, careless". Not sure how that came about.
I used to work on a San Francisco team with a Zurich counterpart, mostly staffed with people of Italian descent. There was a quite confusing situation once involving a misunderstanding of my use of "terrific"; they thought I was calling something horrifyingly bad. Another such situation went something like this:
Me: "I tried what you suggested and now everything's hunky-dory."
Them, 12 hours later: "Well if you're going to complain about my suggestion, I wish you'd have at least explained what was wrong with it.
A passage in the "Vogue book of manners" from the '30's insisted that one never, ever say that a woman's dress was terrific, with literally no explanation.
"Awesome" and "Aweful" have similar etymologoies: both mean, "Inspiring or creating awe". But one has morphed into, "really good", and the other into "really bad".
On the misuse of the word "literally", I wholeheartedly agree with the following reader comment from an excellent EconTalk podcast, "John McWhorter on the Evolution of Language and Words on the Move"[1]:
This whole “literally” issue seems to have been mis-framed. The reason many of us object to the use of the word “literally” to mean “figuratively” isn’t that we can’t stand the thought of language evolving; it’s because there’s no replacement for it! I once had a friend say to me, “X is literally Y, and I mean ‘literally’ literally (not figuratively).”
- - -
From the same[1] podcast, I also learnt about this fun concept called "backshift": when two words join to become a single word (e.g. "breakfast", "blackboard", etc), the accent often shifts to the first word. In McWhorter's words: When something becomes an established concept and it's made up of two or more words, then you, very often have that shift to the back of the word [i.e. the first word].
I'm not all doing justice to the topic. But go check the transcript[1] for "backshift", Mcwhorter gives more context. I'd strongly suggest to listen to it; it clicks much better, as we're talking about word accents.
Readit News
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Bedelia
"Apple has dropped feature X" - they're revealed this new feature "Apple has dropped feature X" - they no longer support this feature
Even further from being an auto-antonym, but positive and negative meanings both related to time.
For example, clip = to fasten originates from Old English `clyppan` (to embrace/clasp/surround), while clip = to cut originates somewhere Scandanavian, as in Old Norse' `klippa` (to clip/shear). Are those still homographs? I think a fair number of the list items are the result of convergent evolution.
[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/heteronym
[2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/resign
Still think this list would help every struggling learner of English.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally
You may be interested in linguistic descriptivism, as opposed to linguistic prescriptivism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_description
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/misuse-of-lite...
Include me among those who find it frustrating, but the meanings of words are more or less acquired by convention, and I think my side has been outvoted on this one.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fxy6ZaMOq8
- "I could care less" meaning "I couldn't care less"
- "Entrée" meaning a main dish rather than a starter
If people do, what similar turns of phrase would they likewise mangle? "Well done son, I could be more proud", or "I'm completely thrilled, I could be happier", or "I'm at rock bottom, things could be worse".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw
Another one is the pattern “all X are not Y.” Vs “not all X are Y.”
"In Defense of I Could Care Less": https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/03/why-i-could-care-le...
> A number of language writers have suggested that “could care less” has a sarcastic reading, conveying something like “Ha! As if there were something in the world I could care less about.” There are some American Yiddish-inflected phrases that work this way, like “I should be so lucky!” (meaning “there’s no way I’m ever gonna be that lucky”) or “I should care!” (why should I care?). Even if “could care less” didn’t originate from a sarcastic intent, it matches up well enough with these other forms in the language to help give it staying power.
"Caring About Whether You Couldn’t Care Less": https://www.dictionary.com/e/could-care-less/
I particularly like this argument from this second link:
> The argument of logic falls apart when you consider the fact that both these phrases are idioms. In English, along with other languages, idioms aren’t required to follow logic, and to point out the lack of logic in one idiom and not all idioms is…illogical. Take the expression “head over heels,” which makes far less sense than “heels over head” when you think about the physics of a somersault. It turns out “heels over head” entered English around 1400, over 250 years before “head over heels,” however, the “logical” version of this idiom hasn’t been in popular usage since the late Victorian era.
In British English it means “disputable” while in American English it means “hypothetical”.
Similarly we use the word "oversee" for examining/observing... however "oversight" has taken on the role of an Auto-Antonym. We often use "oversight" and "lack of oversight" to mean the same thing, that something was missed due to carelessness... but we also use it to mean "supervision" that should prevent careless omissions from happening.
In Japanese 適当 is supposed to mean "appropriate, proper", but in practice it almost always means "unserious, sloppy, careless". Not sure how that came about.
Me: "I tried what you suggested and now everything's hunky-dory."
Them, 12 hours later: "Well if you're going to complain about my suggestion, I wish you'd have at least explained what was wrong with it.
On the misuse of the word "literally", I wholeheartedly agree with the following reader comment from an excellent EconTalk podcast, "John McWhorter on the Evolution of Language and Words on the Move"[1]:
This whole “literally” issue seems to have been mis-framed. The reason many of us object to the use of the word “literally” to mean “figuratively” isn’t that we can’t stand the thought of language evolving; it’s because there’s no replacement for it! I once had a friend say to me, “X is literally Y, and I mean ‘literally’ literally (not figuratively).”
From the same[1] podcast, I also learnt about this fun concept called "backshift": when two words join to become a single word (e.g. "breakfast", "blackboard", etc), the accent often shifts to the first word. In McWhorter's words: When something becomes an established concept and it's made up of two or more words, then you, very often have that shift to the back of the word [i.e. the first word].I'm not all doing justice to the topic. But go check the transcript[1] for "backshift", Mcwhorter gives more context. I'd strongly suggest to listen to it; it clicks much better, as we're talking about word accents.
[1] https://www.econtalk.org/john-mcwhorter-on-the-evolution-of-...