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  Sara Rosinsky • Shiny Red Copy

sara's Shiny red blog

English can be two-faced.

4/7/2021

11 Comments

 
Picture
Someone from Mumbai just sent me a message on LinkedIn. He wanted to show me a writing error he’d spotted. The allegedly misused word was oversight.

Uh-oh, I thought: Janus word.

I read the problematic sentence, and sure enough—there was no error. Just English being wacky again.

I explained that oversight has two different meanings that are essentially opposites. You can make an oversight if you’re sloppy (overlooking something); conversely, if you’re extremely reliable, you might be granted the oversight (supervision) of an entire department or company. So you might say there’s a bad kind of oversight and a good one.

Thanks, English.

Similarly, in the springtime, you might seed a garden (place seeds in the soil). But after you grow a cucumber, you might want to seed it (remove the seeds) before you cut it up for your salad.

You might dust your tiramisu with cocoa powder (that is, add a dusting of it); you might also need to dust your furniture (remove the dust).

If you permit some sort of behavior, you sanction it. But if you don’t permit it, you might threaten sanctions as punishment.

It’s no wonder these types of words are called Janus words. The Roman god Janus had two faces, as in the statue above. (Side note—January is named after Janus, too.)

These words are also called contronyms and auto-antonyms and a few other terms you can learn about on Wikipedia and elsewhere.

If you peruse an article about Janus words, that means you examine it very attentively. But it also means that you just skim it in a cursory manner.

Do you have any favorite Janus words?

11 Comments
Tim Carothers
4/7/2021 08:18:23 am

Janus words remind me of Russell Conjugations, which are synonyms with opposite spins. For example, "I am firm, but you are obstinate."

https://tomdehnel.com › what-is-russ...
Web results
What is Russell Conjugation? Definition and Examples | Tom Dehnel

Reply
Sara Rosinsky link
4/7/2021 08:42:17 am

I knew nothing about that! Now I'm trying to wrap my head around it.

I also didn't know about Eric Weinstein. I'm now following him on Twitter.

Thanks for the information!

Reply
Mark Aronson link
11/19/2022 03:22:10 pm

The late, great Sidney J. Harris of the late, great Chicago Daily News used to run Russell Conjugations in triple form. Using the Carothers example, you might have something like “I am firm, you are obstinate, he is implacable.”

Cami Travis-Groves
4/7/2021 08:49:11 am

The first one that came to mind was "cleave." Then I got to thinking of two more modern slang words: "sick" and "wicked" both meaning bad and good.

Reply
Sara Rosinsky link
4/7/2021 08:52:53 am

Yes! I just mentioned "sick" to someone on LinkedIn. Also, you can say "bad" and mean "good." "Cleave" is a good one, too, but people don't use that word so much.

Isn't English EASY? 🤦🏻‍♀️

Reply
Stjepan link
4/13/2021 09:19:57 am

You want a Ianus* word?

Really.

It can be used to convey ANY sentiment other than candor.

* The ancient Romans (and I) wince at the mention of the word "Janus" and the exclamation "By Jove!" (how many people know that this is the vocative form of Iupiter, I wonder?) as the original Latin alphabet did not contain the letter J.

The unfortunate side of sticking to the original Latin language is working with microbiology and saying the name of a very common fungus "Aspergillus niger" without anyone in the audience flinching.

Reply
Sara Rosinsky link
4/13/2021 09:36:04 am

When I read this comment, I immediately thought, "This sounds like Stjepan." Sure enough. 😁

I hope you're not spending all your time wincing—throughout the month of January, for example.

As for "Aspergillus niger," it's no worse than the Republic of Niger. Surely scientists are inured. (As opposed to, fittingly, injured.)

Reply
Stjepan link
4/14/2021 10:25:51 am

Dear Sara,
I'm quite sure you can "sense" my compulsion to comment a week before you post anything.

On a serious note, I don't think it's the same as the Republic of Niger because names of species actually are in actual Latin (in actuality)!

There's a difference: January is an English word with a Latin root. Ianuarius is an actual Latin word.

I've always felt that anglicizing foreign words is on par with being sloppy with grammar.

I also have this thing where I believe there's respect in learning how to properly pronounce someone's name in their own language.

At universities, in very typically international environments, you'll get people from far and wide.

And often, people will, of their accord, decide to call someone by a provisional name because they lack the courtesy, respect, and willingness to make an effort to learn to pronounce someone's name correctly.

"My name is Xiaoyuan"
"Oh, okay. I'll just call you Angie, alright?"

God forbid one should learn something new.

In the case of species' names - when they get mangled by quite a number of different English "interpretations" - it leads to confusion. I've heard at least 3 different pronunciations of "Aspergillus".

In fact, if there existed a general consensus, a unified "Merriam-Webster Anglicized Latin" handbook, it'd be fine by me.

It only takes a bit of effort, really, and a little patience.

And if scientists are inured then it's the native English speakers only.

You should hear the many versions of my first name Stjepan. The worst I've heard is something that sounds literally as someone saying "St. Japan" really quickly.

Reply
Sara Rosinsky link
4/14/2021 10:38:15 am

Before I speak to you with my voice instead of my keyboard, you must send me a recording of you pronouncing your name so I don't screw it up.

Reply
Stjepan link
4/14/2021 08:30:14 pm

It may sound like I'm some kind of language snob but it's actually the other way around.

It amazes me how native English speakers will put a lot of effort into learning all of the lingo that comes along with their new snobby hobby (ain't that a nice couple of words) such as French wines, Italian painters, or some new age stuff like a secular form of Zen meditation or an outlawed fusion of Pilates Yoga and contorsionism. You wanna make sure to accentuate that "Namaste" correctly, right?

But then, when it comes to professionalism, communicational correctness, respect, or just common courtesy - all that linguistic enthusiasm is suddenly lacking.

I suppose it's a case of "nihil novi sub sole" in terms of painstaking interest in narcissistic self-edification but not much else.

Stjepan link
4/14/2021 06:49:07 pm

Well, a good point to start is to go to Google Translate, switch the language to Croatian, type in "Stjepan", and press the little loudspeaker icon to hear it.

If I was to spell it, it would be:

St-yeh-pah-n

It's almost like Yahveh, I just need a a double tetragrammaton (an octagrammaton?).

Now you might as well go do the same with Chinese and type in "xièxiè" and see what that means.

If you want to hear a really funny sound - look up the word for "chopsticks" in Chinese or "zero" in Italian.
Few people can say that sound that is essentially a contraction of dz. A voiced alveolar sibilant affricate, as it appears to be called. I just call it "the sound in Italian for zero".

A final bit of fun:
An alga called "Micrasterias" (from Latin "little star":
https://dev.biologists.org/content/141/24/4841
See Figure 2G.
And... check out the author list 😉

I make it s rule to learn how to say "Hi!", "Bye!", "Thanks", and a random cuss word from a native speaker of every language I come across.

I could tell you really bad things in Ashanti.

Arigato gozaimasita! (Japanese)

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