[net.nlang] words and their opposites

todds@orca.UUCP (Todd Stewart) (06/01/85)

> From: training@rtech.ARPA (Training account)
> Subject: Re: words and their opposites
> Date: 14 May 85 15:10:06 GMT
> > For another example,
> > 
> > 	We chop trees DOWN and then we chop them UP !

> My French teacher told us that when he was teaching English in France,
> his students just couldn't understand why "THE HOUSE BURNED DOWN" means
> exactly the same thing as "THE HOUSE BURNED UP."

> Robert Orenstein
> Relational Technology

Doesn't the UP imply that the house was consumed by the fire, while
the DOWN implies that the house was leveled (razed, given 0 height (-:
).  I suspect that the distinction is similar for the tree-chopping
example.

                                        Dave
                                        "ice on vax bang dps"
                                        Friday, 5.17

-- 

	Todd Stewart
	(503) 685 2508

	{ ucbcad,decvax,hplabs,uw-beaver }!tektronix!orca!todds

art@think.ARPA (Art Medlar) (06/04/85)

This discussion is Priceless!!!

But what about words that are their opposite
with the letters rearranged?  Three that come
to mind are UNTIE --> UNITE,
CASUAL --> CAUSAL, and (pushing it slightly)
PRESERVATIVE --> PERVERSATIVE


Art Medlar
Thinking Machines Corporation
Cambridge, Massachusetts
(617) 876-1111

greid@adobe.UUCP (Glenn Reid) (06/04/85)

-----
How about words like "flammable/inflammable", or the fact that "fat
chance" and "slim chance" mean effectively the same thing?

Glenn Reid

pablo@dartvax.UUCP (David Cohn) (06/05/85)

[wogga]

I remember flying on a particular, unnamed airline a few years back and 
noticing that the baggage cart that loaded the airplane had had two of
the letters on its logo reversed. The side of it said:
                 "UNTIED AIRLINES"
Perhaps that's a bit more pertinent nowadays....

______________
David Cohn (pablo@dartvax)

arnold@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Ken Arnold%CGL) (06/06/85)

In article <1542@orca.UUCP> todds@orca.UUCP (Todd Stewart) writes:
>> > 	We chop trees DOWN and then we chop them UP !
>> My French teacher told us that when he was teaching English in France,
>> his students just couldn't understand why "THE HOUSE BURNED DOWN" means
>> exactly the same thing as "THE HOUSE BURNED UP."
>Doesn't the UP imply that the house was consumed by the fire, while
>the DOWN implies that the house was leveled (razed, given 0 height (-:
>).  I suspect that the distinction is similar for the tree-chopping
>example.

The only generally available (and even then not very generally) work
on this field is "Metaphors We Live By", by G. Lakehoff and sombody
(my copy is at home; I can provide more particulars on request).
Unfortuantely, this form of trailing modifier (whose technical name
escapes me) is not very well covered in the book; the field of language
metaphor is rather recent.

Todd's summary for this is basically right.  Unfortunately describing
how these metaphors seem to work is best done with pictures, not words,
so until everybody gets a standard graphics scope on their desk to read
news with....

One of the more fascinating things is how the opposites you normally
associate with a word are sometimes wrong.  For example the opposite
of "out" is "in", is it not?
		We rolled the carpet out.
		We rolled the carpet up.
Well, maybe not always...

		Ken Arnold

dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady) (06/06/85)

The "UNTIED AIRLINES" sign on the baggage cart was, I suspect, a
deliberate joke by an employee.  Some employees are like that.  For
years somebody at the Kroger near Duke has been turning off the K and
the R in the sign and leaving OGER.

Which brings up an interesting puzzle:  What other famous signs can be
amusingly corrupted by selective darkening of individual letters?
-- 
D Gary Grady
Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC  27706
(919) 684-3695
USENET:  {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary

greid@adobe.UUCP (Glenn Reid) (06/06/85)

I flew on the same unnamed airline recently, and I noticed that on the
two seatbacks immediately in front of me were:

	SEAT BACKS MAY BE USED		SEATBACKS MAY BE USED
	FOR FLOTATION DEVICE		FOR FLOATATION DEVICE

As I looked around, there seemed to be equal numbers of each spelling.
After a while, I wasn't even sure myself! :-)

colonel@gloria.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman) (06/07/85)

[If a lion could speak, it would not understand itself. --L.W.]

> How about words like "flammable/inflammable", or the fact that "fat
> chance" and "slim chance" mean effectively the same thing?
> 
> Glenn Reid

"Fat chance" is ironic, like "I could care less."
-- 
Col. G. L. Sicherman
...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel

dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady) (06/08/85)

This worked better back in the days of disco, but...

In the morning we get up, and at night we get down.

Yours funkily,
-- 
D Gary Grady
Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC  27706
(919) 684-3695
USENET:  {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary

bob@cadovax.UUCP (Bob "Kat" Kaplan) (06/08/85)

I've always liked phrases where two sequential words were contradictory:
    "out in the water"
    "off on a tangent"
    "Now, then..."


-- 
Bob Kaplan

"To be completely safe is to be completely dead."

rwl@uvacs.UUCP (Ray Lubinsky) (06/08/85)

> How about words like "flammable/inflammable", or the fact that "fat
> chance" and "slim chance" mean effectively the same thing?

Well, not *really*.  "Slim chance" seems  to  be  used  as  a  literal  remark,
whereas  "fat  chance"  is  used  sarcastically.   Maybe there's seems to be no
difference, but the choice of using one phrase over the other is  made  by  the
emotional intent toward whatever you're refering.

This reminds of an English professor of philosophy who said that he ran into  a
problem  in  writing  a recommendation by saying that the ex-student was "quite
good."  This was misconstrued by the hiring committee; the professor had  meant
that  the  student  was  not very good at all.  He told us that the English say
"rather good" to mean what we Americans say by "quite good."  "Quite  good"  is
reserved for sarcasm.
-- 

Ray Lubinsky		     University of Virginia, Dept. of Computer Science
			     uucp: decvax!mcnc!ncsu!uvacs!rwl

gwyn@brl-tgr.ARPA (Doug Gwyn <gwyn>) (06/09/85)

> Which brings up an interesting puzzle:  What other famous signs can be
> amusingly corrupted by selective darkening of individual letters?

After a hurricane in Pasadena, TX, a SHELL service station had lost the S.

jeff@rtech.UUCP (06/10/85)

> -----
> How about words like "flammable/inflammable", or the fact that "fat
> chance" and "slim chance" mean effectively the same thing?
> 
> Glenn Reid

"Slim chance" is literal, "fat chance" is ironic or sarcastic.
-- 
Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.)
aka Swazoo Koolak

{amdahl, sun}!rtech!jeff
{ucbvax, decvax}!mtxinu!rtech!jeff

rob@ptsfa.UUCP (06/11/85)

In article <584@adobe.UUCP> greid@adobe.UUCP (Glenn Reid) writes:
>-----
>How about ... the fact that "fat
>chance" and "slim chance" mean effectively the same thing?
>

It seems to me that "fat chance" was originally sarcastic while
"slim chance" was not. Big deal!  :-) :-)
-- 


Rob Bernardo, San Ramon, California
ihnp4!ptsfa!rob
{nsc,ucbvax,decwrl,amd,fortune,zehntel}!dual!ptsfa!rob

rlr@avsdS.UUCP (Rhode L. Roberts) (06/11/85)

> Which brings up an interesting puzzle:  What other famous signs can be
> amusingly corrupted by selective darkening of individual letters?

	In the Bay Area of San Francisco Ca. along highway
	101, a sign can be seen;

		SAN JOSE STEEL COMPANY

	At Christmas time, and at night when the sign is lit,
	selected letters have been turned off to read;

		  N  O     E L

matt@oddjob.UUCP (Matt Crawford) (06/12/85)

In article <1429@ecsvax.UUCP> dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady) writes:
>Which brings up an interesting puzzle:  What other famous signs can be
>amusingly corrupted by selective darkening of individual letters?

My friend oddjob!adrian sent to the National Lampoon a photo of
a sign advertising:

	CHRIST AS DINNER WITH
	  ALL THE TRIMMINGS

You can guess what letter had been lost.
_____________________________________________________
Matt		University	crawford@anl-mcs.arpa
Crawford	of Chicago	ihnp4!oddjob!matt

jt@nrcvax.UUCP (Jerry Toporek) (06/23/85)

In article <1429@ecsvax.UUCP> dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady) writes:
>The "UNTIED AIRLINES" sign on the baggage cart was, I suspect, a
>deliberate joke by an employee.  Some employees are like that.  For
>years somebody at the Kroger near Duke has been turning off the K and
>the R in the sign and leaving OGER.
>
>Which brings up an interesting puzzle:  What other famous signs can be
>amusingly corrupted by selective darkening of individual letters?

My favorite has always been at the Ramada Inn by the airport in Rochester, NY.
The bar there was a notorious pick-up joint.  For some reason they couldn't
keep the last "A" lit, so the sign would bekon to folks on their way home on
the expressway: "RAMAD  INN".

wjhe@hlexa.UUCP (Bill Hery) (06/27/85)

(w)reckless driving ?

landauer@drivax.UUCP (Doug Landauer) (07/02/85)

Does Eunice run "under" or "on top of" VMS?
I've heard it described both ways, by people
meaning the same thing.

jeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman) (07/06/85)

> Does Eunice run "under" or "on top of" VMS?
> I've heard it described both ways, by people
> meaning the same thing.

To say that a program runs "under" an operating system usually only means that
it runs on computers using that operating system.  To say that a program runs
"on top of" an operating system usually means that it hides some of the
characteristics of the operating system.
-- 
Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.)
aka Swazoo Koolak

{amdahl, sun}!rtech!jeff
{ucbvax, decvax}!mtxinu!rtech!jeff