English is a strange language.

Comments

• Enkers@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  There’s actually a whole class of these words. They’re called heterological words.

  Their opposite, autological (or homological) words are words that do describe themselves. Autological is an autological word because it describes itself.

  Here’s a fun question, though: is “heterological” a heterological word? If you say yes, then that means it does not describe itself and therefore it is not heterological. If you say no, then it does describe itself therefore it is heterological. Bit of a head scratcher.

  This is the Grelling-Nelson paradox.

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  • sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    My favorite homological word:

    Sesquipedalian:

    An unnecessarily long word, or a person who uses unnecessarily long words.

    Sesquipedalian is a sesquipedalian word.

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    • Enkers@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Oooh, that’s a good one! Its use also makes its user described by itself. Neat!

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  • pyre@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    the new administration has banned the use of homological words so be careful.

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  • Quicky@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I used to be really interested in paradoxes, but I decided in my old age that they’re all just bloody annoying and pointless. 99% of paradoxes are just linguistics. All these philosophers who spent their lives debating them are infuriating bastards. “Oh you’ve come up with another unsolvable word puzzle have you? Well that’s language for you - an abstraction developed by the fallible. Congratulations mate, great use of everyone’s time.”

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    • Enkers@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      OK, Grandpa, back to bed. j/k j/k :)

      We have multiple industries (movie/tv/gaming/sports) whose main focus is “wasting” time. Finding some enjoyment in linguistics and logic certainly isn’t any more of a waste.

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  • RandomVideos@programming.dev ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Why is autological an autological word?

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    • blujan@sopuli.xyz ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Because it refers to itself, it’s like the trivial case

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  • ewigkaiwelo@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Isn’t there a mistake in your first statement about the word heterological? If I say yes the word heterological is heterological it means that it doesn’t fall into the class of words that it describes and so it is heterological, because as you’ve defined heterological words do not describe themselves

    Here’s a fun question, though: is “heterological” a heterological word? If you say yes, then that means it does not describe itself and therefore it is not heterological.

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    • Enkers@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      You’re correct. I had an extra not in there! Good catch.

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  • jaybone@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    You’re the substitute teacher who wouldn’t let us play Heads Up Seven Up.

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• aeronmelon@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  What sadist put an S in lisp?

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  • toynbee@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I think I first saw this question on coolsig.com in the late nineties.

    Also, I just discovered that site still exists. Fun!

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  • Vespair@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    This seems to apply to a number of speech impediments, as “rhotacism” is the term for people with difficulty saying R sounds and apparently “stutter” is a particularly difficult word for people with stutters.

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  • lugal@sopuli.xyz ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Wait, I thought it’s a th?

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  • levzzz@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    List Processing, ya know?

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• Pregnenolone@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  The hyphen has long been killed by the Internet. It suffered a worse fate than “literally”; it faded into nothingness without even so much as a “where is it?”

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• psx_crab@lemmy.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  !hyphenated.

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  • Whelks_chance@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Important hyphenated.

    CSS is a strange language too

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    • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That’s one of the syntax usages that irritates me the most in any language.

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• Willy@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  hyphen-ated

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  • ReginaPhalange@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Was it delicious?

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• lemmus@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  [deleted]

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  • pyre@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    hyphenated words are on their way out. not much use for the hyphen in most cases.

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    • lugal@sopuli.xyz ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      It’s more an in-between-state what words go through and when they are done, new ones follow

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