would "civil war" count?
isn't that an oxymoron? (like "fresh frozen" or"military intelligence" )
Auto-antonym
11–20 of 31 posts
Re: Auto-antonym
#12As a recovering language curmudgeon, it literally kills me that "literally" is now an auto-antonym too [1]. [1] http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_eng...
I actually disagree with the dictionary there. In my experience (and admittedly my sample is limited), no one intends "literally" to weaken or to make it clear that their usage is figurative. I think use of "literally" applied to something obviously not literal is just another example of hyperbole.
That doesn't actually disagree with the dictionary text linked in grandparent post [0], though it disagrees with the apparent interpretation of it by the post that linked it.
[0] which provides, as the definition for the non-literal use: "(informal) Used for emphasis or to express strong feeling while not being literally true" and, says of that use in the usage note: "In recent years, an extended use of literally (and also literal) has become very common, where literally (or literal) is used deliberately in nonliteral contexts, for added effect: ‘they bought the car and literally ran it into the ground’."
Re: Auto-antonym
#13would "civil war" count?
That phrase doesn't as a whole have two related but opposite meanings, so it would not count.
Re: Auto-antonym
#14As a recovering language curmudgeon, it literally kills me that "literally" is now an auto-antonym too [1]. [1] http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_eng...
I actually disagree with the dictionary there. In my experience (and admittedly my sample is limited), no one intends "literally" to weaken or to make it clear that their usage is figurative. I think use of "literally" applied to something obviously not literal is just another example of hyperbole.
Hyperbole, yes, but the word is often used in a sense that is semantically identical to "figuratively". For example, in my previous comment you could s/literally kills/figuratively kills/ without changing the sentence's meaning. (Although it would change the role of the modifier from emphasis to clarification.)
Re: Auto-antonym
#15In Dutch the word for hostage and hostage-taker is the same (gijzelaar).
Re: Auto-antonym
#16Re: Auto-antonym
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually disagree with the dictionary there. In my experience (and admittedly my sample is limited), no one intends "literally" to weaken or to make it clear that their usage is figurative. I think use of "literally" applied to something obviously not literal is just another example of hyperbole.
Hyperbole, yes, but the word is often used in a sense that is semantically identical to "figuratively". For example, in my previous comment you could s/literally kills/figuratively kills/ without changing the sentence's meaning. (Although it would change the role of the modifier from emphasis to clarification.)
> Hyperbole, yes, but the word is often used in a sense that is semantically identical to "figuratively".
No, its used as an intensifier when the fact that the usage is figurative is implicit, it is not used in a manner semantically identical to figuratively. (When used in this way it is used figuratively -- to mean "almost as if literally" -- but it is not used to mean "figuratively". That is, without "literally" in the same context, the phrase would already be understood to be figurative, the word "literally" is not communicating the meaning "figuratively", it is communicating something about the already-figurative use of the word modified.)
Re: Auto-antonym
#18The word "hack" can mean to assemble (e.g., hacking some code), but also to destroy (as in, hacking with an axe).
This is a homonym, not an auto-antonym.
Re: Auto-antonym
#19In french there's also the curious case of "pesanteur" (gravity), which is feminine; so "la pesanteur" (the gravity). But the absence of gravity is "apesanteur" (weightlessness), which is also a feminine word; so "l'apesenteur". So we have two slightly different words that actually sound exactly the same with their articles. It's only a few years ago that people decided to change the prefix and use "impesanteur" instead (which is however a bit less accurate - see the difference between "im-possible" (not possible) and "a-gnostic" (without belief)).
Re: Auto-antonym
#20Relevant discussion from 2 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9339540
This discussion reminds me of a joke:
A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day. "In English," he said, "a double negative forms a positive. In some languages though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative.
However," he pointed out, "there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative."
A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."