(no subject)

[caithion]

Here's a question for the linguists and English majors among us:

I need a positive word that has at its root two opposing words, or that has a root word which is different from its modern meaning.

A kind of anti-example would be "awful", which of course has at its root "full of awe". Awe is not always a negative thing, but awful is.

I know, not linguistically sound, but I'm not worried about the details. I need it to substitute in a translation I'm doing. The original Japanese has:
Everyone, the characters for "enjoyable" are written as "painful" and "happy". Exactly so, for the body is in pain, but the heart is happy.

Which is fine, except that the setting is Ireland, so to make this a good translation, I need an English word-play that I can use in its place.


... And I'm sure this makes no sense but I'm too tired to think straight. Is it really only 9 o'clock?

Comments

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

(Here via the FFL. Please excuse the intrusion.)

Fantastic? My OED defines it as 'extravagently fanciful, capricious, eccentric; bizarre; grotesque or quaint in design' before giving the colloq. meaning of wonderful.

Otherwise-- bewitching, or even 'cool'?

None of which are quite as pithy as the Japanese, of course.

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

Terrific? From terrere "fill with fear" (see terrible) + root of facereM/em> "to make". Nice from the latin nescius "ignorant".

[caithion.livejournal.com]

Oooh. Jenny, perfect! n_nV

[caithion.livejournal.com]

Thank you for commenting! I really appreciate the suggestions.

'Fantastic' sounds like a definite possibility.

[lazzchan.livejournal.com]

There are a great many words that are like that... but it's like... 7am, so the word bank is trying to get restarted.

amazing
1593, pp. adj. from amaze (q.v.). Originally "dreadful;" sense of "wonderful" is recorded from 1704.

[caithion.livejournal.com]

The problem is always when you *have* to think of words, isn't it? My brain just wouldn't cooperate.

Thank you! :)

[canis-m.livejournal.com]

Above "terrific" is nice. Along slightly different lines, I also thought of any number of negative words that in contemporary usage can mean the opposite: "bad," "wicked," (or "wicked good"--how Bostonian), lately "sick" also; "devilishly good" is another fun oxymoron.

[mprice.livejournal.com]

Wicked is also used in Britain with the same meaning as awesome in the US.

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

But with an added note of "Wow, have the 90s come back already?"

[caithion.livejournal.com]

The 90s never die! :D

[caithion.livejournal.com]

Oh, those are good examples! But I should have added that it's the 1920s, so I think they'd be a bit of an anachronism. XD

Thanks!

[cheesemon.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the brain workout. ^_^; For some reason, the first word that came into mind was "Kawaii soo" which isn't very helpful. :P

What may be helpful though is after a bit of digging, I found out the linguistic term for the words you're looking for: contronyms

Like this?: http://www.rinkworks.com/words/contronyms.shtml

[caithion.livejournal.com]

Hmm, that's really interesting. From what they say there, I think contronyms are more the same word with two opposite meanings, while I'm looking for a word that, because of its linguistic origins, is made up of two words with opposite meanings. So a little different. But either would actually work as a substitute for the Japanese example. I'll have to look at the list more closely! Thanks!