Palindromes and Semordnilap

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Published 31 Aug 2013

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Contranym

A contranym is a word that can be its own opposite. Contranyms — like a heteronym, portemanteau, palindrome and semordnilap — are neat things to look out for. Like how you can dust something to pick up dust from a surface and dust that surface to remove dust from it. So versatile. Or perhaps confusing. I learned this from Kathryn Schulz’ excellent article, What part of “No, totally” don’t you understand, about how “no, totally” came to mean “yes.” …A contranym is a word that can be its own opposite. Contranyms — like a heteronym, portemanteau, palindrome and semordnilap — are neat things to look out for. Like how you can dust something to pick up dust from a surface and dust that surface to remove dust from it. So versatile. Or perhaps confusing. I learned this from Kathryn Schulz’ excellent article, What part of “No, totally” don’t you understand, about how “no, totally” came to mean “yes.”

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