Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskThe traditional rule is that “the whole comprises the parts, and the parts compose the whole”. The pyramid comprises the blocks, not the other way round; by the same reasoning, “comprised” is wrong too. But if you do not know this rule, you are hardly alone. It was a favourite of Theodore Bernstein, a longtime copy guru at the, who repeated it in usage books of 1958, 1965 and 1977.
“Sanction”, for example, can mean both “to approve of” and “to lay a penalty upon”. “Fast” can mean speedy or stuck in place. “Cleave” can mean to split, or to cling tightly. “Fulsome” praise can be full-throated and genuine, or cloyingly insincere. One class of Janus words is particularly troublesome: those that mean different things on opposite sides of the Atlantic. “Moot”, for instance, means “that which can be argued; debatable” in Britain; it means “not worthy of discussion” in America.
It helps if you don't elide the prepositions or the passive voice.
Biannual is another unfortunate glitch.
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Oversight is another one.
I’ve seen this story five times now. Got anything fresh?
millihill If you look up their etymology many words make polar shifts in meaning over time. There can be a dialectic at play, like cleave, or a word may take on a hint of irony, like the use of fulsome with a negative connotation. Interesting aspect of our language.
Dangit!
millihill Any chance you can retweet this without the paywall? As far as I know, neither 'fulsome' nor 'comprise' is a Janus word. People just use them incorrectly.
Its a part of doublespeak. Phoenician -- Hebrew ---Greek---Latin----English. From Latin to English they made words mean the opposite. How coded. Good = stupid. Disease = an inconvenience.
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Janus
Sasa what are these😂😂
Yeah 'truth' has a variety of meanings doesn't it? Conservatives
“Sanction” is the example I have the greatest ambivalence about.
The ideas of perfect languages from Latin are gone an entire new language needs to be for those methods. It's a language that was a language within Latin that did those sorts and the further removed the less perfect the words.
Moot
In today's world where we have many mentally ill people, the message and picture might translate to a deranged mind to burn the pencils. Or intent to incite murder with intent by subliminal messages and if this were the case, a solicitation to murder. Like what I experienced.
“In a perfect world” - the language is irredeemable
Because those words represent precisely the strategy of the US across the world, to create new wars and human calamities! The dual meaning helps to bring strategic ambiguity! 😂
This is Forkese, a language that snakes use.
Oversight
Okay, now I need to know what context 'cleave' is meant to mean...joining two parts together? I think 'inflammable' is supposed to be read as 'able to become inflamed' and just happens to *look* like a modification of 'flammable'
Try “woman” ..
Spendthrift.
Some same assets are described totally different, depending on the timing. The morning after a bank crisis, some assets are described as very risky. The same assets, years/months before the crisis, were described as very safe.
I sanction this column!
Actually. They don't.
'nonplussed' is my favorite one of these can mean confused, or like, unimpressed
poetically
Who is 'Johnson'? Why don't your articles have real bylines?
English¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
Sore in Britain means hurt but in US means angry . Two sides of same coin ?
Latin, tollo-ere = “to raise” & “to lower” Freud wrote an essay on this called “On the antithetical nature of primal words”
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