Thread: When words reverse their meaning Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by Reuben (# 11361) on :
 
A quirk of the English language is when words can be subtly altered to mean the opposite of what is meant.

For example:
"Beckham resigns"
So is he staying or going? I am none the wiser.

And in the papers today a man charged with murder stated:
"I didn't kill no one"
How are the courts meant to interpret such a statement?

Have others come across this confusion? Does it have a name?
 

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Posted by Balaam (# 4543) on :
 
A double negative is used in conversational English to strengthen the negative.

"I Didn't kill no one" means I am stating the fact strongly that I killed no one. Don't let the grammar nazis tell you otherwise.
 

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Posted by Beethoven (# 114) on :
 
Sometimes it's a hyphen (or lack thereof) that makes the difference. In your first example, I'd go with re-signs as opposed to resigns, for clarity.

I remember years ago being baffled by an email I received from a customer, which started:
'Dear Sir/Madam,
I resent your email which you asked for...'
I'd not emailed him previously, and didn't even remember speaking to him. He was responding to a standard message that was absolutely inoffensive as far as I could see. When I eventually realised he meant 're-sent', everything suddenly made sense!
 

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Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 
One of the most tragic examples is that of Derek Bentley, hanged for the murder of a policeman in 1953.

According to police Bentley shouted 'Let him have it, Chris'. Christopher Craig, his accomplice, then shot and wounded one policeman (a sergeant who had been restraining Bentley) before he shot and killed another. The jury took the phrase to mean 'shoot' while the defence argued that it meant 'hand over the weapon'. Bentley was found guilty and died while Craig, because he was under 18, served ten years.

Bentley's conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal in 1998.
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 

quote:

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Balaam: A double negative is used in conversational English to strengthen the negative.

"I Didn't kill no one" means I am stating the fact strongly that I killed no one. Don't let the grammar nazis tell you otherwise.

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quote:

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Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:

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Balaam: A double negative is used in conversational English to strengthen the negative.

"I Didn't kill no one" means I am stating the fact strongly that I killed no one. Don't let the grammar nazis tell you otherwise.

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In (colloquial) Brazilian Portuguese, it's even common to use triple negatives for this! This phrase would become: Não matei ninguém não.

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quote:

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Sioni Sais: 'I didn't not never kill no-one!'

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Definitely guilty
 

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Posted by Jonah the Whale (# 1244) on :
 
Sometimes it can take centuries for words to shift meanings. I sometimes come across Dutch or German words which share the same origins as English words with a completely different meaning. For example "zalig" (Dutch) or "selig" (German) mean (more or less) blessed, or blissful. But the English word "silly" comes from the same root and originally meant the same. OK, so it's not a complete opposite, but it's quite a change of meaning. Apparently it went through the phases of meaning pious, then innocent, then naïve before meaning foolish.
 

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Posted by tessaB (# 8533) on :
 
Maybe it's me but the word 'satisfactory' now seems to mean 'unsatisfactory'.
For example a school or early years setting which gets rated satisfactory by Ofsted is considered to be doing the bare minimum, that is your children probably wont die there but who knows? I always thought it meant meeting expectations.
 

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Posted by The Great Gumby (# 10989) on :
 
Of course, there are words that need no alteration, but can only be understood in context. Sanction, for example - does it mean approving something, or denying something?
 

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Posted by Og, King of Bashan (# 9562) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
One of the most tragic examples is that of Derek Bentley, hanged for the murder of a policeman in 1953.

According to police Bentley shouted 'Let him have it, Chris'. Christopher Craig, his accomplice, then shot and wounded one policeman (a sergeant who had been restraining Bentley) before he shot and killed another. The jury took the phrase to mean 'shoot' while the defence argued that it meant 'hand over the weapon'. Bentley was found guilty and died while Craig, because he was under 18, served ten years.

Bentley's conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal in 1998.

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quote:

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Originally posted by tessaB:
Maybe it's me but the word 'satisfactory' now seems to mean 'unsatisfactory'.
For example a school or early years setting which gets rated satisfactory by Ofsted is considered to be doing the bare minimum, that is your children probably wont die there but who knows? I always thought it meant meeting expectations.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jonah the Whale:
Sometimes it can take centuries for words to shift meanings. I sometimes come across Dutch or German words which share the same origins as English words with a completely different meaning. For example "zalig" (Dutch) or "selig" (German) mean (more or less) blessed, or blissful. But the English word "silly" comes from the same root and originally meant the same. OK, so it's not a complete opposite, but it's quite a change of meaning. Apparently it went through the phases of meaning pious, then innocent, then naïve before meaning foolish.

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"Host" and "guest" come from the Germanic same root word. That is "host" as in someone who l;ooks after guests., and "host" as in army, and "host" as in Holy Communion. All the same word. And the same root word got borrowed byut he ancient Romans and we got it back direcftly from latin as "hostile". Meanwhile in French it gave right to "hospital", "hostel" and "hotel".

"Vicar" and "Viking" likely come from the same root as each other
 

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Posted by dj_ordinaire (# 4643) on :
 
Is this related to the fact that antonyms often share the same root, e.g. 'East/West', 'hot/cold', 'black/blank'...
 

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Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 

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Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
Of course, there are words that need no alteration, but can only be understood in context. Sanction, for example - does it mean approving something, or denying something?

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I've got a little list (one I made earlier):

Words that mean their own opposite:

cleave (split or join)
fast (move fast vs hold fast)
left (departed or behind)
out (come out vs. go out)
oversight (supervision vs omission)
quite (entirely or sort-of)
sanction (approve or ban)
graft (hard graft is work, the other sort is sleaze)


There are some that are not really their own opposite in normal useage but have different meanings for different speakers or in specialised contexts:

buckle (fasten a shoe or bend a piece of metal - not really opposites I think)
down (a direction or a hill)
let (hinder vs. allow)
moot (arguable or not)
strike (is to fail to strike, in baseball)
table (a motion)
 

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Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :
 
On the subject of double negatives: I've heard it said that a double negative is sometimes a negative and sometimes a positive(depending on the register), but a double positive is never a negative. My dismissive reaction: Yeah, right!

Another historical example is prevent. There's a Cranmerian collect that says "prevent us, Lord, in all our desirings." When composed, that meant "go before us..." but now prevent has come to mean "hinder."
 

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Posted by Ger (# 3113) on :
 
Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favour ...
 

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Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :
 

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Originally posted by ken:

Words that mean their own opposite:

cleave (split or join)
fast (move fast vs hold fast)
left (departed or behind)
out (come out vs. go out)
oversight (supervision vs omission)
quite (entirely or sort-of)
sanction (approve or ban)
graft (hard graft is work, the other sort is sleaze)

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I'm not sure if all of these work. "Fast" seems to mean the same thing in both cases, intensifying the verb. It's "move" and "hold" which mean opposite things -- "fast" just means each of them more ardently. It would be like claiming "very" can mean opposite things (very good vs. very bad).

Similarly with "out"; in both your examples it describes movement from a confined to an open space, the opposite sense comes from the opposition of the verbs. The others I'll probably grant.
 

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Posted by St.Silas the carter (# 12867) on :
 
Sure no discussion about this could occur without mentioning "Before Jehovah's Awful Throne".
 

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Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
The kids round here use 'sick' to mean 'wonderful'


 

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Posted by BessHiggs (# 15176) on :
 
Where I grew up 'wicked' was positive, as in, "This sandwich is wicked good" or "I've got tickets to the Red Sox/Yankees game tonight! Wicked!"
 

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Posted by Starbug (# 15917) on :
 
In the sixteenth century, the word 'let' meant 'prevent'. As in Henry VIII's song, Pastime With Good Company - one of the lines is 'Who shall me let', which actually means ''Who will stop me?'

[ 04. July 2012, 19:47: Message edited by: Starbug ]
 

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Posted by Balaam (# 4543) on :
 

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Originally posted by ken:
"Vicar" and "Viking" likely come from the same root as each other

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quote:

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Also posted by ken:
table (a motion)

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Originally posted by Hart:

quote:

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Originally posted by ken:

Words that mean their own opposite:

fast (move fast vs hold fast)
<snip>

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I'm not sure if all of these work. "Fast" seems to mean the same thing in both cases, intensifying the verb.<snip>

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Originally posted by Alaric the Goth:
<snip>Similarly 'gossip' originally meant 'godparent'!

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quote:

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Originally posted by St.Silas the carter:
Sure no discussion about this could occur without mentioning "Before Jehovah's Awful Throne".

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quote:

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Originally posted by Balaam:

quote:

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Originally posted by ken:
"Vicar" and "Viking" likely come from the same root as each other

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I know Vicar comes from vicarious, acting in the place of someone else (in this case the Bishop). Can you explain how Viking comes from this root?

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quote:

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Originally posted by John Holding:
"Vicar" and "Viking" likely come from the same root as each other

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quote:

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It's plausible that it comes from the same root (though how I can't imagine) as the latin "vicus", from which we get words such as vicinity.

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Well, they could plausibly descend from a common Indo-European root. But also it might be a straight borrowing from Latin - the Romans used "vicus" as the name for a small settlement that grew up around a military camp, or a trading post, or a border fort. So it would certainly have been known to both the Germans and the British as the name for a Roman trading post (and there was a related word in Gothic, presumably also borrowed from Latin) I guess the word had something of the sense of "compound" and "factory" as used in 17th-19th century colonial and trading ventures. And from there it came to mean, in different contexts, a temporary military camp, a market, a small town, a dairy farm, or even a salt mine.

As for "viking" - the word ("wicing") is attested in Old English and Old Frisian before it is in Old Norse :-) The "Vik" may also be the same word, meaning either an inhabited place on the sea or a temporary military camp. At least that's what the OED tells me, I just checked.

It also says that "vicus" in Latin is probably cognate with "oikos" in Greek. If so then Ecology, economics, and ecumenical are all part of the family.
 

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Posted by TurquoiseTastic (# 8978) on :
 
Something seems to have happened to the word "pity".

"I pity you" now carries the meaning "I hold you in contempt".

Similarly "pitiful" means "appalling, contemptible".

This is a shame, I think. Or should I say "a pity"?

Personally I love C.S. Lewis' picture of pity in "The Great Divorce" that "leaps quicker than light from the highest place to the lowest to bring healing and joy".
 

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Posted by Reuben (# 11361) on :
 
"With respect...."

!!!
 

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