#contronyms

[intj-greenwords]

I love English

[theyuniversity]

⚠️ Many words in English have contradictory meanings, e.g., “sanction” = ‘to allow’ or ‘to prohibit.’  

Others include “clip” (to cut 💇🏻; to attach 📎) and “bolt” (to fasten in place 🔩; to run away 🏃🏻‍♀️💨).  

Such contradictory words are called by many names: Janus words, autoantonyms, and contronyms.  

��🏻‍♂️ When you write or speak, give your audience the necessary context to distinguish which meaning you are using.

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[raccoon-in-ankhmorpork]

Something not fandom-related this time:

Have you seen that post about contronyms floating around here somewhere? (If you haven’t, here’s the definition of a contronym.)

The post says that “literally” has become a contronym with its modern use. Upon reflecting on this, although I initially disagreed, I think I now do agree, BUT I think there’s an important distinction to make. Here’s my reasoning:

We might say “ugh, I’ve been waiting for years!”

I think we can agree that this sentence means “I’ve been waiting for a comparatively long time”, and NOT “I have been waiting 365 days multiple times over”, right?

The use of “for years” there is a hyperbole. The modern use of “literally” is very similar: in the sentence “I literally almost died” we usually want to accentuate the gravity of the situation, but without implying that we did, in fact, almost die.

So, what’s the difference? Why is “a comparatively long time” not listed as a meaning of “years”, whereas “figuratively” IS listed for “literally”? It’s because “for years” in that first sentence is still easily recognisable as a figure of speech, whereas “literally” isn’t anymore. A word gains a new meaning when its use in that way is so widespread as to become closely linked to the word, in a way that makes it so we need the new meaning added to the dictionary if we want an English-learner to properly learn to understand the language.

So: “literally” isn’t a contronym simply because it is used as a hyperbole, but because that hyperbole is used almost more than the actual meaning of the word, making it so that it is barely distinguishable as a figure of speech anymore, and instead is moreso perceived and intepreted by our minds as a different meaning of the word.

I know this is incredibly nitpicky and unimportant, but I figured why not talk about it anyways and get it off my chest? This has been “Amateur Takes on Linguistics with Raccoon”, thanks for tuning in :)

[fangedbeau]

Clearing up misconceptions abt DE 🇪🇺🇩🇪

Let me clear up some misconceptions about Germany — and specifically ones that are spread by Germans themselves:

No voter registration needed?

Wherever the abyssal election conditions in the USA are looked upon, the comments section will mention how over here we don't need to go register to vote; all eligible voters just get the election notification in their mail.

If you're German, then that's how you experience it, right? If you're American, think about this: how could the government send documents to every citizen of voting age and not forget anyone, and not send duplicates to anyone, even when they have moved from one state to another? And don't just say that the government is incompetent. How would a competent government do that? They can't. They don't know reliably where everyone lives.

So how does our government do it? With voter registration. So, no, we don't register specifically for voting. But we have mandatory registration for a bunch of purposes, including voting. We update the registry whenever we move to a new address, regardless of elections. So people don't think of it as voter registration, but that still is part of it. And you can't pick and choose which purposes you actually want to be in the registry for and which you'd rather skip.

The USA don't have any existing registry like that. And I can't imagine that you would want that.

What's true, however is that we vote on Sundays and have enough polling places that there won't be waiting times longer than a few minutes.

But voter ID?

On that topic someone will usually note that Germany has voter ID though.

Ah, yes, in the election notification letter it always says that I should bring my ID card or travel passport. But you know what?

I've never had to show my ID at the polling place. I'm asked to bring one, just in case. But the letter was always enough. They cross me off their list and let me vote.

Also note that it's not anything wacky, like a weapons license, but my ID card or travel passport. You know what those two documents have in common? They are issued by the federal government and are printed based on the same registration data that is used to issue my election notification and send it to me. So the spelling of my name on my ID card and on my travel passport ought to match exactly that in the voter list, because they are taken from the same database. But, again, I never had to actually show my ID, only bring one along, just in case.

‘umfahren’ confusion?

Have you heard that ‘umfahren’ (unstressed um-) means ‘to drive around’ and ‘umfahren’ (stressed um-) means ‘to run over’, and they're written the exact same and differ only in syllable stress?

Well, the spelling of the infinitives is identical. That much is true. But otherwise the words are more distinct.

Imperative:

umfahre es — vs — fahre es um

Preterit:

ich umfuhr es — vs — ich fuhr es um

Past perfect:

ich habe es umfahren — vs — ich habe es umgefahren

And how often would you use the infinitive in a sentence in real life?

Furthermore, the widely repeated translation is inaccurate.

‘jmd./etw. überfahren’ means ‘to run s-b./sth. over’

‘jmd./etw. anfahren’ means ‘to hit s-b./sth. with a driving vehicle’

‘jmd./etw. umfahren’ (stressed um-) means ‘to topple s-b./sth. over by hitting them/it with a driving vehicle’

And ‘überfahren’ is the word that is more often colloquially misused when it's not technically accurate. The specific term ‘umfahren’ is not used as often as you may have thought when you heard the inaccurate translation.

Because tsunamis?

There's a strawman talking point claiming that because a nuclear accident in Japan was caused by a tsunami, Germany — that doesn't experience tsunamis — decided to quit nuclear power, which doesn't make sense. … Things tend to make no sense when you're missing the point.

Japan is at the junction of four tectonic plates. They experience earthquakes with some regularity, which at the ocean can cause tsunamis. And Japan is a technologically highly advanced nation.

The point isn't: «oh no, what if a tsunami hits a nuclear power plant?» The point is that this was to be expected and Japan was supposed to be prepared for it. They should have been able to safely power down the reactor but ended up in a situation in which that wasn't possible any more.

The same chain of events couldn't unfold here. But that same outcome shouldn't have been possible there. So how could we be confident that it wouldn't happen here under any circumstances?

[snuuufi]

dissemble (v) (used with object)

[ dih-sem-buhl ]

to give a false or misleading appearance to; conceal the truth or real nature of

to put on the appearance of; feign:

Obsolete. to let pass unnoticed; ignore.

[redsaxguy]

Weathering sanctions

Apology left fast bound

Cleaving boundless bolts

🙂 🙃

[in-sufficientdata]

Words that also mean their opposite drive me nuts because it means you just can't use them:

Nonplussed

Peruse

Overlook

Sanction

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

A contronym! A word with two opposite meanings.

Thought I definitely think of the second definition first. The “non” prefix usually means to negate the definition of the second part.

For real.

[yazzydream]

[blink-fox]

TMA S5 spoilers

Headcanon: after the apocalypse a psychologist was one of the most demanded professions. Eventually they started to specialise in the Fears: a Spiral psychologist, a Lonely psychologist, etc

[theyuniversity]

⚠️🤯 Many words in English have contradictory meanings.

For example,

CLIP = fasten together 🖇️; cut apart ✂️

Here’s a list of other autoantonyms (aka contronyms, Janus words).

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[coquelicoq]

oooh how about "overpowered"? it either means you are excessively powerful ("this character is OP") or you have succumbed to someone else's superior power ("i've been overpowered"). obviously they're not exact antonyms and they don't play the exact same role in a sentence because the second is more directly verbal than the first. but when i first encountered the first usage, i was really confused because i only knew about the second usage, which has functionally the opposite meaning.

"under par": another functional contronym? in a golf context it means you're doing well, better than expected, and even though i don't care about golf i tend to extend that meaning to other contexts - contexts in which it is perhaps more likely to mean "worse than expected". you can see how this would create the potential for wacky misunderstandings and so forth.

[tcr55]

I know what they mean, but what it says is the same as a restaurant with a sign in the window saying ’no eating’.

[clairenatural]

pals (friendly acquaintances i'm too scared to call my friends) vs pals (my bestest friends in the whole entire world)

[plumerii]

when people are like "so you can just pick and choose what words mean now" like yeah actually. words can and will lose their meaning, this isn't new. if you try hard enough you can bend most words to your will and make them mean whatever you want. authenticity turns into irony turns into post-irony then reaches authenticity again but in a different sense. one of the reasons why language is so beautiful and so horrifying.

[bookwomansoul]

I might as well be a living contronym.

-anne.