Clinamenic
Binary & Tweed
Make tools great again.death to tools.
Make tools great again.death to tools.
I heard someone today saying the phrase "one of a kind" which always fascinates me in that its meaning in general usage is that someone or something is unique. What it literally says is the exact opposite, I mean if there is a kind and a person is one of that kind then they are not unique are they? They are similar to (if not the same as) the other members of that kind.
Another one is "a poor workman blames his tools" - which is used to say that someone who complains about their equipment must be a poor workman. This is in fact the converse of what the phrase literally says. If A = poor workman and B = blames his tools then the phrase can be rendered A => B when people intend to say B => A.
Another is "the exception that proves the rule" which is a weird one, people use it when someone has shown a counter-example which defeats their argument to somehow claim that it makes their argument stronger, which is obviously bollocks. I think that comes from a misunderstanding of the word "prove" which is here being used in the old sense meaning to test to destruction. In other words this phrase has, over time, become corrupted to mean the exact opposite of what it did originally.
As for ambiguities I like that one when someone is described as "deceptively tall" - does that mean that someone is short but deceptively looks tall, or that someone is tall but deceptively so in that they look short? Well I looked it up and it seems there is no agreement, it could be either of those things.
I think bi-monthly is similar... does it mean twice a month or every two months?
So why do these ambiguities and outright contradictions persist. How did they come about and why? And what else is there out there?
Maybe "inflammable" is derived from the verb enflame, and the switch from en- to in- was aesthetic, rather than semantic?that inflammable is a synonym, rather than antonym, of flammable (the actual antonym for both being nonflammable)
but incombustible is an antonym of combustible
despite the two sets of terms having what seems to be exactly the same type of Latin root
maybe with someone with better Latin can explain
anything with flame comes from the Latin "flammare" (which means flame) plus some prefixMaybe "inflammable" is derived from the verb enflame, and the switch from en- to in- was aesthetic, rather than semantic?
Yeah inflammable and flammable always seemed like an assault on everything I knew or believed about logic and language.that inflammable is a synonym, rather than antonym, of flammable (the actual antonym for both being nonflammable)
but incombustible is an antonym of combustible
despite the two sets of terms having what seems to be exactly the same type of Latin root
maybe with someone with better Latin can explain
Just looked it up for you..
Another one that's pretty much as bad is "endorsement" as a good thing (a recommendation of some product or service) and the same word as a bad thing (points on your driving licence). How does that work?
Why would a good worker use shit tools?When they're shit tools?
Because they've been caught in an emergency situation, without their usual toolkit, and have had to make do with whatever they had to hand.Why would a good worker use shit tools?
Sure, that explains the origin of the word, but not how it came to have meanings that are pretty much diametrically opposite in terms of value judgement.Just looked it up for you.
endorse (v.)
c. 1400, endosse "confirm or approve" (a charter, bill, etc.), originally by signing or writing on the back of the document, from Old French endosser (12c.), literally "to put on the back," from en- "put on" (see en- (1)) + dos "back," from Latin dossum, variant of dorsum "back" (see dorsal).