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Janus Words, or Contronyms
Janus was the Roman God of endings, beginnings, transitions and doorways. January, our portal into each new year, was named for him. Janus Words, or Contronyms, are words that mean a specific thing, but also mean its opposite. Here are some examples.
Cleave can mean to split apart, or to join together.
Sanction can mean to forbid a thing, or to allow it.
Weather: To endure against the elements, or to erode from them.
Screen: To hide a thing from view, or to show it for viewing.
Dust: To sprinkle specks on a surface, or to remove them.
Left: Something that has Left has departed; something that is Left remains present.
Aloha: Hello, or Goodbye.
Some Janus words come to be because the essence of a single word applies equally aptly in two contrary directions. Aloha means, essentially, Love. We naturally express Love when greeting a friend Hello, and also when parting from them with a Goodbye. In English, we distinguish Hello and Goodbye as opposites in time, and in the direction of motion of two friends. But in Hawaiian, those moments evoke the same feeling of warm connection, expressed as Aloha.
Other Janus words are not singular but twofold in origin. They are homographs: two words that sound and look the same, but in fact derive from different roots. Cleave is descended from the Old English Clēofan (to cut or carve); but it is also descended from the Old English Clifian (to stick or adhere).
Two Countries, Separated by a Common Language
George Bernard Shaw once said that England and America are two countries, separated by a common language. Here are two instances of that. The first is a Janus word, and the second is the opposite of that. No, I guess, not the opposite of a Janus word—that would be a word with one clear fixed meaning, and no hint of any meaning beyond that one.
Table: In the US, to remove an item from the agenda; in the UK, to add an item to the agenda. In Britain, when you remove an item from your agenda, that is called Shelving it.
Next we have the converse of a Janus word: two words that appear to be opposites, but in practice mean the same thing. In England, Inflammable means combustible, while in America Flammable does. In 1605, Inflammable was imported from Latin into English, meaning easily set on fire (or analagously, quick to anger). in 1813 some bright spark (/s) coined Flammable, with the exact same meaning. The source of confusion here lies in the Latin prefix In-, which often negates (e.g. Invisible means Not visible), but can also mean to do or to cause (as in, Indoctrinate or Inflame).
Both terms were used on both sides of the Atlantic until the 1920s, when the National Fire Protection Association (in the US) decided to clear away this needless confusion. They promoted Flammable as the correct term, and it has predominated in the US for the last century. Meanwhile, Inflammable remained the more usual term in British use. In the last couple of decades, Flammable has been replacing Inflammable in England, and also, experts now advise we use Nonflammable for its opposite.
I lived and schooled in England for a decade of my youth, and am always curious about words that mean one thing in the US and another in the UK. Also, about differences in spelling across the pond, and in slang expressions. But this Table dichotomy is a new thing under the sun, to me. It’s the first time I’ve seen a US word mean the opposite in the UK. There are plenty more Janus words than I’m covering here, and I hope you will share others that have caught your eye, in your comments below. If you happen to know any more US vs. UK contronyms, I’ll be doubly delighted to learn of them.
Semantic Change or Semantic Shift
Semantic change, or shift, or drift is when a word’s meaning slides sideways over time into an adjacent meaning. Sometimes its meaning will continue sliding across the centuries, until it ends up somewhere else entirely. For our study, let’s consider the words that shift up or down (in value or virtue or status), until they end up meaning approximately the opposite of where they came from. When a word betters itself, that is called Amelioration; when it falls on hard times, that is called Pejoration. If you want it spelled out in more detail, Ojibwa did that nicely a decade ago.
Nice: Originally meant needy or foolish; now means kind or thoughtful.
But Nice is purely complimentary now, so it is only a contronym when you gauge it across several centuries. Bad and Wicked have always been negative terms—and still are—but have also evolved recently, in slang usage, to mean their own opposites: Good, cool, worthy of admiration. Slang always aims to keep current, to signal that its users are hip and up to date, knowing the inside lingo that squares don’t get. So slang words often undergo rapid semantic shifts, sometimes into their own opposites.
Moving on to Pejoration, Awful is not quite an evolving Janus word, it’s a bit more complex than that. Awful originally meant Worthy of Awe—so, inspiring wonder, but also fear. That feels mixed, good and bad, to the modern mind. Though I suppose if you’re an ancient God, that’s doubleplusgood, the exact effect you want from the mortals at your feet. Nowadays, Awful just means exceedingly bad. That’s bad, in the bad way.
Hussy first meant respectable housewife, later any woman, and finally a wanton girl.
Literally. Look, I can’t even start with this one. If you try to use Literally to mean anything other than Factually, Exactly—then, as a reader and book lover, you are being asinine (in the precise sense of, blundering foolishly in spite of knowing better). Just go stand in the corner and ponder the error of your ways, you dunce.
As you’ve seen by now, I adore words, both for their singular quiddities, and as the building blocks of all that we write. If you agree, and want to wonder at some more words, please help yourself to my deep delving: Books Go Boom! — 40 Words You Don't Yet Know
They’re words from other languages, which should exist in English, but don’t. Except that they kind of do. English is the voracious omnivore, who just grabs words willy nilly from every other land, then swallows them whole and exults, “Well they’re all English now.” It’s how we gathered the largest vocabulary on earth.
My delving starts, coincidentally, with Aloha, passes through Potlatch, Sprezzatura, Curglaff, Petrichor, Wai-wai, Kintsugi, Sprachgefühl and many more. I hope you like it, and thank you for reading this one too.
Well, that was a lot. But I’ve been doing all the talking, and it’s your turn now.
If you know any more Janus Words, please say so in a comment below. Also and of course, as always, this is Bookchat, where you can talk about anything you want. Do you have any favorite words, that you like to use all the time, or that you save up for special occasions?
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