An MIT linguistics professor was lecturing his class the other day. "In English," he said, "a double negative forms a positive. However, in some languages, such as Russian, a double negative remains a negative. But there isn't a single language, not one, in which a double positive can express a negative."
A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."
- There were no two ways about it -> there were two ways about it.
- Inadvertently -> advertently.
- Misnomer -> nomer.
- Unrequited -> requited.
In general, these words and phrases formed by back-formation are not recognized as standard English. A native English speaker will see “gruntled”, have to pause for a moment, and consider that it must mean the opposite of “disgruntled”. Native English speakers will not use the world “gruntled” in conversation or writing unless they are doing it for comedic effect.
Most of the phrases are used in a way where it makes sense what’s being said, but most native speakers only use the phrases slightly modified to mean the opposite of how they’re being used in the writing.
Ha! Exactly my thought! My uneducated guess is that because we are (or at least I am) lacking a lot of vocabulary compared to native speakers, we have to do every time we read something written in a rather lyrical way or that has unusually complex words.
Regarding the 1600's English, for me this is definitely easier to understand than Shakespeare.
Chalant is the present participle of the (disused) verb "chaloir", which means "to matter to someone", "to be important (to someone)".
It's only used anymore in the words "nonchalant" (someone to which things don't matter much) and the expression "peu me chaut" (it matters little to me).
But although "nonchalant" has a clear meaning, the meaning of "chalant" wouldn't be as obvious, since while it's easy to not care about things generally, "generally caring about things" is just the normal state of a person. It's the same reason you don't often hear about a stoppable force or a wieldy tool.
Nonplussed is a particularly weird case as it means surprised but many people (particularly in North America) think it means not surprised, and so they might think plussed means surprised when through this backformation it ought to mean non-surprised.
'rot13' only works with the alphabet. 'rot18' can do the same thing with numbers too, so rot13 + rot5 = rot18.
Pointless trying to obfuscate info if you can still see the numbers part 'en clair' to give the game away. (bank PINs, phone numbers, etc) Need to obfuscate the digits too.
I don't know whether it's a hug or a slap. It's enormously hard to read but great fun! Do yourself a favor and read this article if you looked immediately at the comments.
I can’t read it because I have the New Yorker app installed, and they use universal links to launch the app whenever you click a link to their domain, and this article isn’t on their app.
My favourite example is the word "deceptively". "The pool was deceptively shallow" could mean the pool was shallower than it looks, or it could mean the pool was not as shallow as it looks, depending on who you ask.
When we have certain friends around and have had a few drinks and some food, someone will ask if everyone is now "gruntled" as in we were previously disgruntled but that has now been resolved.
Shouldn't it logically be "make heads and tails of"?
There are a few superfluous expressions, that make me think I'm missing something (but it's hard enough to read as it is, the reader needs something familiar to hang on to). e.g.
So I decided not to rush it.
But then, all at once,
I was, after all
The more I fret about keeping up with the latest and greatest tech, the more I need to come back to stuff like this. Words are fun too, and creativity isn't limited to building startups.
-Someone who majored in neither comp sci nor literature.
For people unfamiliar with it, Shouts & Murmurs are, from the html code, '<meta name="description" content="Weekly humor and satire about politics and daily life, from The New Yorker's writers and humorists.">'
Very cool! I have never actually seen many of these words in their root forms-- so the author has managed to present something fresh. Also makes me think that the English language is overly abundant in negativity sigh.
[+] [-] agency|5 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unpaired_word
[+] [-] aarchi|5 years ago|reply
prepone - to reschedule to an earlier time
The page on defective verbs is also interesting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defective_verb
[+] [-] glitchc|5 years ago|reply
It’s a true test of “Can you deal with the double negative?”
[+] [-] scandox|5 years ago|reply
Anecdote:
An MIT linguistics professor was lecturing his class the other day. "In English," he said, "a double negative forms a positive. However, in some languages, such as Russian, a double negative remains a negative. But there isn't a single language, not one, in which a double positive can express a negative."
A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."
[+] [-] mgkimsal|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jsinai|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NoodleIncident|5 years ago|reply
> I was, after all, something to sneeze at, someone you could easily hold a candle to, someone who usually aroused bridled passion.
[+] [-] m-ee|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marcodiego|5 years ago|reply
I have to ask: what is so special about it?
[+] [-] klodolph|5 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-formation
Examples from the article:
- Disgruntled -> gruntled.
- Nonchalant -> chalant.
- Make no bones about it -> make bones about it.
- Traveling incognito -> traveling cognito.
- There were no two ways about it -> there were two ways about it.
- Inadvertently -> advertently.
- Misnomer -> nomer.
- Unrequited -> requited.
In general, these words and phrases formed by back-formation are not recognized as standard English. A native English speaker will see “gruntled”, have to pause for a moment, and consider that it must mean the opposite of “disgruntled”. Native English speakers will not use the world “gruntled” in conversation or writing unless they are doing it for comedic effect.
[+] [-] yial|5 years ago|reply
Most of the phrases are used in a way where it makes sense what’s being said, but most native speakers only use the phrases slightly modified to mean the opposite of how they’re being used in the writing.
Kempt vs unkempt for example.
[+] [-] paublyrne|5 years ago|reply
Disgruntled, for example is a common word; gruntled is not.
[+] [-] brozaman|5 years ago|reply
Regarding the 1600's English, for me this is definitely easier to understand than Shakespeare.
[+] [-] geluso|5 years ago|reply
This reminds me of hanging out with friends when someone wondered, "what is the opposite of nonchalant? Is 'chalant' its own thing?!"
[+] [-] seszett|5 years ago|reply
It's only used anymore in the words "nonchalant" (someone to which things don't matter much) and the expression "peu me chaut" (it matters little to me).
But although "nonchalant" has a clear meaning, the meaning of "chalant" wouldn't be as obvious, since while it's easy to not care about things generally, "generally caring about things" is just the normal state of a person. It's the same reason you don't often hear about a stoppable force or a wieldy tool.
[+] [-] dan-robertson|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkaic|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] schoen|5 years ago|reply
Guvf fgbel vf jevggra hfvat n frevrf bs Ratyvfu jbeqf naq svkrq cuenfrf gung abeznyyl bayl bpphe va n artngvir sbez, arire va n cbfvgvir sbez. Ubjrire, gur nhgube gerngf nyy bs gurz nf univat cbfvgvir sbezf gung jbhyq zrna gur bccbfvgr bs gur artngvir sbez. Guvf vf fhecevfvat naq shaal, ng yrnfg sbe angvir fcrnxref jub unir arire frra gur cbfvgvir sbezf orsber naq znl unir gb fgbc naq guvax nobhg jung gurl jbhyq gurbergvpnyyl zrna.
Rknzcyr: abaqrfpevcg (glcvpny, trarevp, beqvanel), qvfneenl (pbashfvba, punbf) → qrfpevcg (erznexnoyr, rkgenbeqvanel), neenl (beqre). Gur ynggre gjb jbeqf ner abeznyyl arire hfrq guvf jnl va cenpgvpr.
[+] [-] compscistd|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raldi|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simonblack|5 years ago|reply
'rot13' only works with the alphabet. 'rot18' can do the same thing with numbers too, so rot13 + rot5 = rot18.
Pointless trying to obfuscate info if you can still see the numbers part 'en clair' to give the game away. (bank PINs, phone numbers, etc) Need to obfuscate the digits too.
[+] [-] FpUser|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hyperpallium2|5 years ago|reply
BTW Never noticed before, but because 13*2 = 26, rot13 is both encoder and decoder.
[+] [-] gred|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nyokodo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dharmab|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryantgtg|5 years ago|reply
Edit: nevermind. Long click gave me more options!
[+] [-] EGreg|5 years ago|reply
(I always wondered what people mean that something was sanctioned. It is so ambiguous!)
[+] [-] peterburkimsher|5 years ago|reply
http://www.fun-with-words.com/nym_autoantonyms.html
[+] [-] yen223|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] poulsbohemian|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] owl57|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Dig1t|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hyperpallium2|5 years ago|reply
There are a few superfluous expressions, that make me think I'm missing something (but it's hard enough to read as it is, the reader needs something familiar to hang on to). e.g.
[+] [-] klodolph|5 years ago|reply
“But then, all at once, for some apparent reason…” might be the opposite of “little by little, for no apparent reason…”
[+] [-] Wonnk13|5 years ago|reply
-Someone who majored in neither comp sci nor literature.
[+] [-] jxy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] realjohng|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] schoen|5 years ago|reply
The humor of this is that they generally don't occur that way in English. That's why you haven't seen them!
(This is discussed in much greater detail elsewhere in the comments.)
[+] [-] circumvent123|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] aniijbod|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whoisjuan|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emmelaich|5 years ago|reply
Quite proud of myself :-)
Like many unpaired, it derives from French.