English isn’t a real language, it’s three drunk dialects in a trench coat trying to scam us with "aUtO-aNtOnYmS"
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English is an absolute trainwreck of a dialect, and if you need proof that our ancestors were profoundly lazy, look no further than contronyms..... WORDS THAT LITERALLY ALSO EXIST AS THEIR OWN EXACT FUCKING OPPOSITES??..... And the most unfortunate part is that this ISN'T something you can even blame on MODERN INTERNET SLANG.... This is CENTURIES OF HISTORICAL INCOMPETENCE smashed into the EXACT same spellings.... fascinating, right?
Let's start by looking at the word "cleave."
It means to stick to something. Ya know, like superglue!
.....but it ALSO means to slice something cleanly in half with an axe.
Why? Because Old English had two distinct, perfectly fine words: clīfan (to stick) and clēofan (to split). BUT because English speakers have ALWAYS mumbled like they’re recovering from dental surgery, the pronunciations merged because everyone apparently just said fuck it so now the same word means BOTH joining a holy union AND decapitating someone??? Logic.
Then we have "sanction," which lets you either officially permit an action OR slap a country with economic ruin to starve their economy! It comes from the Latin word for a legal decree... but since legal scholars are apparently very incapable of writing NORMAL SENTENCES? Well, it seemed easier for them to just use the same word for the part of the law that grants a right and the part that punishes you for violating it, instead. Fast forward a few centuries, and "sanctioning" an idea means you either love it OR want to destroy it.... whatever floats your boat, i guess... right?
THIS IS TRULY GROUNDBREAKING STUFF HERE, GUYS....
But I'm not finished! Because the word "dust" is even DUMBER because English loves taking a noun and turning it into a verb without doing ANY actual work.... Its absolutely IMPRESSIVE how "dust" was just dirt until the 1500s, some BRILLIANT SCHOLAR decided "dusting" sounds better if it meant WIPING dirt off a shelf, instead!.... OH, BUT THAT'S NOT ALL! MEANWHILE, at the EXACT SAME TIME, a baker ALSO decided "dusting" should ACTUALLY mean dumping a cup of powdered sugar all over a damn pastry....
So JUST an update? We now have a single verb that means both adding and removing the exact same substance, because apparently context clues are supposed to do all the heavy lifting.
My PERSONAL favorite? HAS to be the ELITE LEVEL STUPID WORD known as "OVERLOOK." Why? Simple. Because if you stand on a high cliff and look over a valley, you’re SUPERVISING it like a MAJESTIC OVERSEER!
.....BUUUUUUT, if your STUPID eyes literally look over a detail on a page? Well, that means you just missed it ENTIRELY.
Around the 1600s, the "accidental neglect" meaning completely took over everyday speech. So now, if you "overlook" an issue at work, you either managed the project OR you're just dead ass about to get FIRED for missing a massive fuckin mistake??.....
I am CONVINCED of the fact of which that at LEAST
HALF of our vocabulary exists SOLELY because our ancestors either couldn't pronounce vowels, sucked at writing laws or just forgot how fuckin line-of-sight works.
https://redd.it/1wnpgke@r_etymology
