words with contradictory meanings

I 'barely made the bus' = i made the bus, but it was close. there's no other reading i could give it.

'couldn't care less'

^ always annoys me

"couldn't care less" makes perfect sense to me, "could care less" = wtf - but ilx has done that one to death somewhere.

well yeah i was on about the opposite/same meaning on 'could care less' rly

careometer.jpg solves the dilemma

I 'barely made the bus' = i made the bus, but it was close. there's no other reading i could give it.

― "It's far from 'lol' you were reared, boy" (darraghmac), Thursday, July 29, 2010 10:32 AM (6 minutes ago)

eh, I respectfully disagree.

I mean, "I almost made the bus" means "I missed the bus, but it was close" — no question about it. but unless you already know whether or not they got on the bus, "I barely missed the bus" could describe one of two totally opposite scenarios. the technical, old-school definition of "barely" may be the only one you or I would ever use, but I know a lot of people who use it as a synonym for "not quite".

("they" being the speaker)

PIE

the only way i can justify could care less in my head is by assuming the person saying it is applying dry and acerbic sarcasm. the only way i can justify couldn't care less is by remembering that it's technically correct. effing hate both because one's nonsense and one sounds rubbish.

xxxp i don't think you're going to find anyone to support your definition of barely, that sounds completely bewildering to me.

have never heard the 'barely' where you 'didn't' whatever it was, but it's a big world

fuck, on second thought "I barely missed the bus" pretty much always means, "I missed the bus, but it was close." it's "I barely made the bus" that gives me pause. I guess the verb occasionally makes the meaning of "barely" clear, but it's a tough call more often than not.

maybe I should stop hanging around with dumb people who don't know what words mean.

well let this be a lesson to you imo

Someone told me that if our American friends table an item at a meeting, they mean that the item will be parked and not discussed, while if the Brits table something at a meeting they mean that it goes on the agenda and will be discussed. Crazy.

^ yes

something about 'continuance' in legal terms is there or thereabouts too iirc?

Greek

in one context, it means something you don't understand (It's all Greek to me!). In another, it means something you do understand (Pass it to me, I speak Greek!)

^ never heard of the latter. Must be Merkinism.

i've never heard that either

i never knew that about the british version of "table" which explains a lot of my confusion about parliament

xp I think that might be a quite specific context where someone has something which is written in Greek...

or perhaps...

mean - a mean portion could either be a small one or average sized

Strike (in the baseball sense)

Never understood that. I think they should change it to SWIPE!

ambivalent can be to feel v strong but conflicting feelings, or it can mean not to care one way or the other.

See, I don't think that second definition is actually, you know, a definition of "ambivalent". I've heard people use it that way but I always just thought it was a mistake.

The only definition in Oxford American Dictionary: having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone

I've also never heard these alternative definitions of "barely" and "Greek". "Cleave" was a good one.

xposts OK, Myonga OTM.

"protestant" too, arguably (sort of xpost)

See, I don't think that second definition is actually, you know, a definition of "ambivalent". I've heard people use it that way but I always just thought it was a mistake.

well it's probably a mistake in terms of deviation form original, but in my experience it's usually what's meant by the word.

re: people who have never heard the latter: it was kind of a (apparently hard ot understand and lame) joke. Greek wither means nonsense, or it means the Greek language which is the opposite of nonsense to Greek-literate people. Never mind.

just because I didn't laugh doesn't mean I didn't get it

how about the word cricket bat, cause in one content it's something you use in a sporting competition, but in another context it's a murder weapon

Nothing sporting about murder

It's just not cricket

ebb!

sanction

AWESOME example

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Thursday, July 29, 2010 12:55 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

completely OTM kinda dont need to read anymore after this one

overlook

dust

oversight

underwear

'peruse' as people use it / 'peruse' as it actually signifies

assume

garnish

^ good one

Maybe

(Means essentially the same as "maybe not", amiright? Kind of a half-full/half-empty sort of thing)

gets in on a technicality

Bitch - could either be a very dominant and aggressive woman, or a very submissive one.

wiki has a long list of these here. they're called auto-antonyms.

ha it backs me on ambivalent anyway IN YOUR FACE HI DERE

xp oh my god, that is exactly what I'm looking for. wikipedia is my wife

anabasis
(1) a military advance (2) a difficult and dangerous military retreat[4]

this is just due to xenophon being all contradictory with his title, right.

dollop
"Dollop" can mean "a large amount" or "a small amount" depending on its usage.

... depending on whether it's prefixed with "large " or "small" iow

fish fry
Fish fry can refer either to a meal of fried fish (or a social event primarily serving fried fish), or recently hatched fish. Thus, "fish fry" can refer to either the beginning or ending of life for a fish.

ain't wikipedia cuet

decimate
The literal meaning is to reduce by one-tenth (e.g., a decimated legion). However, in modern English it is popularly used to describe a dramatic reduction in number (a population decimated by disease).

These two meanings are not antonymic. Bad wikipedia.

that page needs decimated.