

Auto-antonym - lylemckeany
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym#Examples

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jayferd
Perhaps this is why so many people are confused by the multiple uses of
"yield" in programming. For example, in a generator context, the metaphor is
that the generator yields (produces) an element. In a threading context, a
thread yields (concedes) to other threads.

~~~
jules
Actually, this is why yield is such an excellent word. If you yield X from a
generator, that does two things:

1\. Produce the value X from the generator.

2\. Yield execution to the calling context.

i.e. exactly the two meanings of yield.

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triangleman83
English having a few words with multiple if opposite meanings doesn't make it
hard to learn. It's hard to learn due to the inconsistency in letter sounds,
especially vowels, from word to word. Other languages such as Spanish are easy
to pronounce because they use the same rules for letter sounds for all words.

Title was changed to be a bit less inflammatory now, or is it flammatory? I
think they both mean the same thing...

~~~
Aloisius
Does most people who learn English as a second language learn both how to read
and speak at the same time?

Native English speakers (as with all languages) learn how to speak years
before they learn how to read. This makes inconsistencies in letter sounds
irrelevant to having good conversational English and leaves learning the
inconsistencies later, where you learn common rules that cover most of the
language and absorb all the rule breakers while reading.

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RyanMcGreal
Another confusing one: _inflammable_ , which means _capable of being set on
fire_ but follows the same pattern as other words in which the prefix _in-_
connotes negation, e.g. _inflexible_.

~~~
fratis
Further confusing the issue: inflammable means exactly the same thing as
flammable.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Ugh, what a country!

 _Such a nice day. I think I'll go out the window!_

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Falling3
Definitely interesting... but is anyone else finding some of these to be a
stretch? "Fast" wasn't very convincing for me since the latter is part of an
idiom. "Moot" I'm just straight up disagreeing with.

~~~
luma
I have no idea where they are getting an additional meaning for "moot".
Perhaps they mean the admin of 4chan is worthy of discussion?

~~~
schoen
I'd still recognize both meanings for the _verb_ "moot": to propose something
for discussion (to moot a proposal), or to render further consideration of
something unnecessary (to moot a court case).

My dictionary says that "moot" as an adjective also has both meetings, but I
don't recognize the 'suitable for discussion, under consideration' meaning.
Wiktionary says that that meaning is current in the U.K. and "dated" in the
U.S.; I'd never heard it before.

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ZenoArrow
...and yet, a child with no prior experience of human language can pick it up
without much fuss. So what advantages does a child have over a stereotypical
adult learner? I'd say these are the key points:

1\. Lack of assumptions. Words often have multiple meanings, don't assume you
know all ways a word is applied, instead pay attention to how context alters
the meaning(s) you are already aware of. 2\. Immersion, a.k.a. throwing
yourself in at the deep end. 3\. Openness to new information. Could also be
highlighted with the word 'playfulness'. Enjoy your progress.

~~~
pmr_
Language learning in children is one of the hardest to explain phenomena in
psychology, linguistics and neuroscience. Trying to sum it up in three bullet
points doesn't do it justice and is a gross oversimplification.

~~~
ZenoArrow
What do you find hard to understand about it? We have limited understanding of
how our brains work, that I grant you, but if you're looking at the
progression we follow in learning a language (i.e. at a more top level view
than at the neuroscience level) then the process is much simpler to
understand, it's all to do with recognition, association and conversation.
Recognition in both the sense of copying sounds we hear and in recognising
facets of the world around us. Association in learning to attribute certain
sounds to what we experience. Conversation in learning that by making specific
sounds and noticing the reaction of others, we show ourselves that the sounds
have purpose in the world around us.

As our skill with language develops, so too does our self awareness, which is
a whole other can of worms, but the skills we take to start off are simple to
summarise, in my opinion.

~~~
pmr_
Sometimes a view can be so high-level that you don't see anything meaningful
anymore.

All three steps you mention are not nearly understood from either a
philosophical or a biological view.

We don't know how an infant recognizes sounds: Is that some innate ability in
humans or is that something that has to be learned as well? If the first, what
are the basic building blocks of recognizing things? If the later, how is it
learned? Think about that what we perceive as language is highly post-
processed. A lot of filtering is done on sound before it becomes conscious
language. Are those filtering rules innate? Are they learned? How does an
infant know the difference between language and other sounds?

Association is even harder. We cannot really start to imagine how association
and memory work.

Conversation is less tricky but still struggles with the question: Is it a
priori knowledge we use to recognize a reaction?

All your three steps require seem obvious, but are incredibly hard to explain
in full. I think you are oversimplifying the problem and only look at the most
obvious parts of it. Consider a simple question: Why can infants learn
language but not arithmetic given the same process you just described? Basic
arithmetic is arguably a lot simpler and about as natural as language, but
still won't be learned by most infants. If your answer somehow includes
language as a fundamental building block of what makes us human, then you are
also taking a stand on some of the things I pointed out earlier and have to
unite your theories.

~~~
ZenoArrow
"Sometimes a view can be so high-level that you don't see anything meaningful
anymore."

High level abstractions are valid tools for building a map of a specific
domain. Please understand that having a high level map does not prevent you
from exploring deeper if you find the subject interesting, nor does it rob you
of the tools to do so... all you need to do is keep on asking 'Why?', 'How?',
'When?', etc... until you're satisfied.

"We don't know how an infant recognizes sounds: Is that some innate ability in
humans or is that something that has to be learned as well?"

"How does an infant know the difference between language and other sounds?"

"Why can infants learn language but not arithmetic given the same process you
just described?"

I grouped these questions, as I wish to answer them all together. Firstly, I
would propose that the recognition of sensory stimuli is innate, which
includes sounds. The roots of recognition can be traced back to the sensory
stimuli we experience early on. Consider the sound of a baby screaming, which
is typically the first sound they make after being born. A baby screaming in
pain will typically be physically comforted shortly afterwards. Linking
screaming with a subsequent response of comfort could easily be the start of
our understanding of language, the senses working in tandem helping our early
understanding of the world grow.

Arithmetic is more complex than the relationship between scream and comfort.

"We cannot really start to imagine how association and memory work."

We can 'start to imagine' that though, through neural networks, brain scans,
etc....

Please understand, if you are interested in this subject, I appreciate other
approaches (such as neuroscience) can help build a fuller picture, but high
level approaches are still valid when building up intuition for a subject.

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matt-attack
It's missing my favorite auto-antonym phrase "off the menu".

~~~
danielweber
You can't add too much water to a nuclear reactor.

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moepstar
I'm confused why English is always said to be hard to learn - those concepts
mentioned exist in other languages as well..

Even to the opposite, i'm not sure if there's a language where there are _no_
words with 2+ different/opposite meanings?

~~~
RyanMcGreal
English is a lumpy mishmash of West German, Scandinavian, and Old Norman,
leavened with generous helpings of Latin, Greek, and borrowed words from
dozens of other languages. That makes for a big basket of grammatical,
spelling and pronunciation exceptions held together by vestigial declensions
and duct tape.

All in all, a delightful language to read and write if you know it, but a tar
pit if you're trying to learn it.

~~~
rogerbinns
I've heard that English speakers are far more tolerant of sentences that don't
follow the rules and can still understand what is said (eg "the mat cat sat
upon"). A French friend said that it can be difficult to understand if the
speaker merely gets the gender wrong.

~~~
saraid216
When I played with constructing my own language, one of my concerns was how
much poetry and wordplay that a logical semantic consistency prevented. For
instance, "I pick... you!" is impossible in a language where the direct object
comes earlier in the sentence.

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viraptor
Auto-antonyms exist in many other languages. Also the examples are mostly very
unusual, or so context-dependent that I'd be surprised if anyone actually made
a mistake because of them. Most have a different usage based on the meaning -
like "to yield [to sb]" / "to yield sth".

Actually English is rather easy compared to most languages. No genders for
objects, no declination, very minimal and rather consistent conjugation, no
cases, etc. I wouldn't say it's confusing to learn (relative to other
choices).

~~~
nollidge
I've heard (from non-native speakers) that English grammar's really easy, but
it's the pronunciation and conversely spelling that sucks. It's 90% phonetic,
but that other 10% is pretty wild.

~~~
saraid216
Ironically, this is because English likes to drag other languages into dark
alleys, beat them up, and rifle through their pockets for loose vocabulary.
That vocabulary tends to come with a different pronunciation.

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gweinberg
I would disagree with "cleave" also. "Cleave from" means the opposite of
"cleave to", but I would argue that that's because "from" means the opposite
of "to", not because "cleave" means the opposite of "cleave".

~~~
nollidge
"Cleave from" isn't a valid construction. A little boy cleaves _to_ his
mother's leg, but you wouldn't say he later cleaves _from_ it. Similarly, you
can cleave a log with an axe (notice no preposition), but you can't cleave it
again with all the nails in the world. (Though you could cleave one piece back
_to_ the other.)

Notwithstanding the verbs' transitivity, they also have distinct etymologies.
From the same Wikipedia article:

> For instance cleave "separate" is from Old English clēofan, while cleave
> "adhere" is from Old English clifian, which was pronounced differently.

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milliams
"Citation" can mean "commendation" or a "summons to appear in court."[citation
needed]

...Oh the irony

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esperluette
another nice big list of these at Wordnik:
<http://www.wordnik.com/lists/contronympho>

