words with contradictory meanings

cleave

ambivalent

before

weather

secreted (bit fo a cheat?)

Don't get "weather"?

inflammable

"Inflammable" has just one meaning.

"ridden" confuses me

like, you might think that a flea-ridden dog would be a dog who'd been ridden of fleas, but it is in fact a dog which is still being ridden by fleas

perhaps this is only confusing in my worry-ridden head

I thought "ridden" in that sense came from "ride", i.e. worries are riding your head.

to weather something is to get by without significant damage, but if something is 'weathered' it's usually quite badly dmaaged

just imo

Ok, that clears it up.

I think you're right, Tuomas, but the two verbs have the same past participle - admittedly there isn't really an overlap in usage, but

Bedridden - being ridden by beds

I think it's supposed to be metaphorical: you're "ridden" by something, i.e. it takes over you - like a loa riding a Voodoo priest.

ridden
mid-14c., pp. of ride (q.v.). Sense evolution, via horses, from "that which has been ridden upon, broken in" (1520s) to, in compounds, "oppressed, taken advantage of" (1650s).

guilt-ridden, bed-ridden, etc

sanction

"Inflammable" has just one meaning.

Properly yes, but it's often misused to mean "not flammable"

damnit there was an xword clue where the answer was a word which meant cut or join, and wasn't cleave. but i can't remember what it was.

dock!

Figurative

fast

What meanings of "fast" are contradictory?

c'mon now you can't do this every time

stuck fast

damnit there was an xword clue where the answer was a word which meant cut or join, and wasn't cleave. but i can't remember what it was.

clip?

stuck fast

But the it's the "stuck" part here that's contradictory, not "fast".

xp nah i answered myself up there, it was dock. how does clip = join?

(8) firmly fixed in place; not easily moved; securely attached.

(xp)

sanction

AWESOME example

ledge - "paper clip"

"Fast" in that sense just means "tightly", which is not in direct contradiction with "fast", meaning "speedy".

xp nah i answered myself up there, it was dock. how does clip = join?

when you clip things together, eg with a paperclip

i used to know loads of these. "cleave" is the classic imo.

dyke

wear

... similar to weather

funny how "old" can mean "young" in some contexts.

If I talk about "the old me", I'm referring to the way I was in the olden days, when I was young.

^ kinda how 'before' works in my head

hmm, I don't q

*hmm, I don't quite follow you, darraghmac

well your future is before you, but you can also look back on something that happened 'before' now

literal

^ nah, there's actually a thread on how this is just misused

ha as there is for 'actually', actually

PRESCRIPTIVIST!

xxxp ah, clever

boned

skim

suck

haha i didn't see boned. i suppose this works in the same way.

skim

― Chaim Poutine (NickB),

losing you here tbh- as in 'to read quickly'?

xpost yeah mine too. but i think it started out as something more intense like whoa fuck, worst moment ever

Cacaphemism is reverse euphemism m, like referring to your spouse as the ol' ball and chain or your car as a jalopy

Sports writers will often talk about a player who, on the cusp of a big career decision, resigns, which means they've inked a new contract with their existing club

Yeah, that one's tripped me up a few times...

that took me a while

It's not the word 'resign', so not a contradictory meaning. It's 'sign' with the prefix 're' added. That's why it should be hyphenated, to avoid the ambiguity.

I debated that for awhile before including on this thread but the two different words are both spelled the same way so it is the same "word" in that respect

apparently that's called a piecewise doublet. i think it's close enough for the thread, or at least i found it interesting

the two different words are both spelled the same way so it is the same "word" in that respect

Yes, that's true, but only when you omit the hyphen. I like hyphens. Unfortunately, some people think we should dispense with hyphens as much as possible. They say hyphens make text look 'fussy' or 'messy', but they serve various purposes. But where there's no ambiguity, I'm fine with omitting them, just not in cases like this.

I like hyphens too and wish the "X-, Y- and Z-free" format didn't seem to be dying out. I'd welcome "Free from X, Y and Z". But you get e.g. "This jewellery is nickel and tin free".

Execute

temper

qualify? as in, it could mean to meet or exceed a standard, but if you offer a qualified opinion you're suggesting it may not actually meet a certain standard of correctness, if i'm understanding this properly.

diegesis/diegetic? as opposed to mimesis, the act of showing, diegesis refers to the act of telling. diegesis also refers to the world of the story being told, in which the narration, or diegesis, is extradiegetic, or not part of that world.

Might be discussed upthread somewhere but I was reminded about “downhill” recently

In IT settings, I've seen "transparent" used to mean "invisible": the process is transparent to the user = the user doesn't notice it.

Which runs counter to the normal business meaning of "transparent" (that is, providing full disclosure; forthright).

Transparent meaning easily seen through covers both those scenarios?

YMP, i can definitely see what you're saying

Narco = drug trafficker or police agent fighting drug traffickers

XP bad news, Touch and Go reissued La Maison de Mon Reve for it's 20th anniversary tomorrow! i was shocked to find that thing repressed in a random record store in Europe.

― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Thursday, October 24, 2024 12:32 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

"spike" can mean to suppress (as a news story) or to undergo a sudden sharp increase (as a temperature)

ha repressed is a good one

words with contradictory meanings

tumbleweeds 8(

lol

'x was lost to y' in the context of military victories/defeats. I just finished reading John Keegan's The First World War, and I kept noticing sentences like this.

Much of the Red Line was lost to the British during the afternoon, either because the garrison ran away or was overwhelmed by the power of the attack.

i.e. the British lost much of the Red Line.

surely that means the British gained much of the Red Line?!

Not in this instance!

what?

eg “she’s lost to me now”

He went to California
Hearing that everything's warmer there
So you write him a letter and say "Her eyes are blue"
He sends you a poem and she's lost to you

Compare "you're dead to me."

Here’s another example from the book:

[French General] Joffre’s object, not yet fully formulated, was to deploy across the rear of the Germans’ thickening front on the Chemin des Dames and so to regain possession of the northern departments, rich in agriculture and industry, lost to France during August.

I think it’s a bit more intuitive in the first person. “The northern departments were lost to us during August.”

Why not say 'Lost BY the British'?

i feel like that's just bad writing/editing but

It's idiomatic for Keegan. In the same way, he wouldn't think twice about saying "shedule" or "take a decision." Or the way someone might say that their hair "needs washed" vs "needs to be washed."

i feel like in order to write like that youd almost have to have a perspective of not just default thinking that the reader is british and reading from that perspective but that you havent imagined that they could be anything else

and even then its forced

"i need a poo"

could mean you're looking to gain a poo but equally could mean you've got one you'd like to get rid of

- Sir John Keegan, OBE

- David Foster Wallace

Tapped

“The keg is tapped” can mean both that a tap has been inserted and it is ready to dispense drinks, and that it’s now completely empty and no longer able to dispense drinks

by the way I always learned that these were called “Janus words”, after Roman god Janus,who looks in opposite directions at the same time, as seen in Janus Films’ logo

...and today's date...

Cool

"Paul Weller was cool towards us"

1) "he came over had a chat and a laff before going back to his dressing room"

2) "he completely ignored us and anything we asked him..."

maybe it comes down to a difference between the UK and the US, but nobody in America would ever want to talk to Paul Weller

I was just thinking of the phrase "kick out the jams." These days you might hear something like, "that band can kick out the jams," meaning they can produce jams and that's a good thing. Whereas the MC5 originally used "kick out the jams" as a command to mean stop jamming.

I thought it was about sandwich ingredients

After over 125 years in business, Smuckers can still kick out the jams

Kick out the jams, Mother Smuckers!

maybe it's actually 'kick out the jambs' aka the door frame

(My band, showing up at the festival with the wrong outfits: "I thought you said wanted a yam band.")

"drop" (to release to the public) vs. "drop" (to remove/discontinue)

Just saw the headline "Norway Dropped as White Lotus Season 4 Location" and was completely baffled which meaning they meant (it was the latter)