About a week ago, someone posted on my Facebook feed a list of auto-antonyms. I had been aware of these words that are so ambiguous they also mean their exact opposite, but I didn't know they had their own name. I believe the first one of these I was aware of was the word "cleave", which can mean to split something apart, but also can mean to cling to. I have also had several experiences involving slang that could also be considered auto-antonyms. I remember being a teenager in the 90s and using the word "bad" to mean good.
A: How was the movie?
B: I loved it. It was so bad.
That is, I'm fairly confident we used to talk this way. It seems so ridiculous to me now, but to be fair, in French "terrible" can mean both terribly good or terribly bad. I know for a fact that we can use the phrase "down with something" to mean that we are actually for something. I remember once telling someone much older than me that I would be "down with something," and she just looked confused. To her, saying "down with something" was reserved solely for protesting something you were against.
Since I think these are kind of fun, I thought I'd check out and see to what degree this phenomena exists in the other languages I've learned, then share what I found here.
Autoantónimos en Español (Examples in Spanish)
I found this blog which addresses the phenomena in Spanish. Of course, you have to know Spanish to read it, but I can still share some of the more interesting examples here. He starts off with the example "yo huelo feo," which would most easily be translated as "I smell bad." However, since in Spanish an adjective can stand alone as a noun, it could also be translated as "I smell something bad." Therein lines the ambiguity. In one way, it means that the bad odor is emanating from the speaker, but in the other it means that the stench is coming from someplace else.
Other examples include "rentar" and "alquilar," which can be translated both as "to rent" or "to rent out." So if someone were to say "yo alquilo un carro," in one interpretation the speaker is the actual owner of the car (I am renting out a car), but in the other they are not (I am renting a car).
Antagonímia példai magyarban (Examples in Hungarian)
The only list I could find of auto-antonyms in Hungarian (in my very short search) was on the Hungarian version of Wikipedia. Some of them made complete sense, like ajándék which can be translated as "gift," and like the word in English can mean something you spend money on (e.g., I bought you this gift) or something that was given to you for free. Another one that appears to be very similar to English is biztos, which means "certain," but at the same time I could say that I'm only certain "to a certain degree," meaning I'm not very certain at all.
One I really like that the article mentions (though I'd like to see more examples of it) is bonyolít, which I always thought meant "to complicate." According to this article, in official language the word can also mean "to oversee or solve," which is the exact opposite it of complicating things. I tried to find some examples of this in Hungarian, but anytime I search for the phrase "a kormány az ügyet bonyolítja" (The government has complicated/solved the matter), I can only find thousands and thousands of examples of the government making things worse. So perhaps it really is the perfect word to describe what government does.
Okay, that's not strictly true. I did find other examples, I just couldn't resist the joke. First I looked on wikiszotar.hu and found the phrase, "a vállalat pénzügyeit bonyolítja" (He oversees the company's finances). I also found what appeared to be some sort of vocabulary test study materials which gave the following example: Manapság legfőképp a forgalmat bonyolítják (meg is látszik rajta!), which in English would go something like, "Nowadays [the government] primarily oversees/complicates traffic issues (and it looks like it too!)" So I'm not the only one with a sense of humor.
What about you? Are there any examples of auto-autonyms that you enjoy in languages you've studied? Feel free to share them in the comments below.
A: How was the movie?
B: I loved it. It was so bad.
That is, I'm fairly confident we used to talk this way. It seems so ridiculous to me now, but to be fair, in French "terrible" can mean both terribly good or terribly bad. I know for a fact that we can use the phrase "down with something" to mean that we are actually for something. I remember once telling someone much older than me that I would be "down with something," and she just looked confused. To her, saying "down with something" was reserved solely for protesting something you were against.
Careful now
Since I think these are kind of fun, I thought I'd check out and see to what degree this phenomena exists in the other languages I've learned, then share what I found here.
Autoantónimos en Español (Examples in Spanish)
I found this blog which addresses the phenomena in Spanish. Of course, you have to know Spanish to read it, but I can still share some of the more interesting examples here. He starts off with the example "yo huelo feo," which would most easily be translated as "I smell bad." However, since in Spanish an adjective can stand alone as a noun, it could also be translated as "I smell something bad." Therein lines the ambiguity. In one way, it means that the bad odor is emanating from the speaker, but in the other it means that the stench is coming from someplace else.
Other examples include "rentar" and "alquilar," which can be translated both as "to rent" or "to rent out." So if someone were to say "yo alquilo un carro," in one interpretation the speaker is the actual owner of the car (I am renting out a car), but in the other they are not (I am renting a car).
Antagonímia példai magyarban (Examples in Hungarian)
The only list I could find of auto-antonyms in Hungarian (in my very short search) was on the Hungarian version of Wikipedia. Some of them made complete sense, like ajándék which can be translated as "gift," and like the word in English can mean something you spend money on (e.g., I bought you this gift) or something that was given to you for free. Another one that appears to be very similar to English is biztos, which means "certain," but at the same time I could say that I'm only certain "to a certain degree," meaning I'm not very certain at all.
One I really like that the article mentions (though I'd like to see more examples of it) is bonyolít, which I always thought meant "to complicate." According to this article, in official language the word can also mean "to oversee or solve," which is the exact opposite it of complicating things. I tried to find some examples of this in Hungarian, but anytime I search for the phrase "a kormány az ügyet bonyolítja" (The government has complicated/solved the matter), I can only find thousands and thousands of examples of the government making things worse. So perhaps it really is the perfect word to describe what government does.
Okay, that's not strictly true. I did find other examples, I just couldn't resist the joke. First I looked on wikiszotar.hu and found the phrase, "a vállalat pénzügyeit bonyolítja" (He oversees the company's finances). I also found what appeared to be some sort of vocabulary test study materials which gave the following example: Manapság legfőképp a forgalmat bonyolítják (meg is látszik rajta!), which in English would go something like, "Nowadays [the government] primarily oversees/complicates traffic issues (and it looks like it too!)" So I'm not the only one with a sense of humor.
What about you? Are there any examples of auto-autonyms that you enjoy in languages you've studied? Feel free to share them in the comments below.
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