14 Comments

Then there are nice contronyms which work only in sound - raise and raze.

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author

Nice. You're right! Perfect opposites.

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Oct 25, 2023Liked by Brent Hartinger

I programmed computers back in the day, and before the Morris worm in ‘88, we would consider a quick SW job, just thrown together, a “hack”, not well thought out, barely working, a prototype. Hack means to “break apart roughly”, we used it to “put together roughly”. Its meaning and connotations have changed since then too.

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author

oh! Interesting.

Yeah, I'm okay if we ban the word "hack" for ever and ever and ever at this point. It should be over and done. LOL

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Or words that look like antonyms but aren't, like flammable and inflammable.

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author

Nice! 🤣

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My coworker and I used to collect heteronyms, words that were spelled the same, but pronounced differently and meant different things.

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author

What a fantastic crazy language English is! 🤣

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Oct 26, 2023Liked by Brent Hartinger

This is more than a word, but "it's all downhill from here" can mean it's all good, easy going until the end, or this is the point from which it all falls apart.

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author

Oh that's great! LOL

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Hope the collaboration goes well! Meanwhile, here are a couple of contronyms:

Clip: attach something to something else, or cut out of something (like a newspaper)

Garnish: to reduce, as in wages, or to add, as to garnish a dish of food

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author

Very good ones! There are more than I knew...

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Oct 25, 2023Liked by Brent Hartinger

I now understand how the universe works!! “Cleave” has driven me to the dictionary more than once 😂!

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author

Glad I could help! 😏🙂🤩

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