The Vocabula Review's word archives are well worth browsing.
I found several words new to me, and I'll bet you all will if you look at:
http://www.vocabula.com/VRDefinitionsArchive2002.asp
Wow, I found the first few pretty darned interesting!
agelast (AY-jel-ast) n. someone who never laughs.
Oh, how awful this would be! I can't imagine never laughing.
dystopia (dis-TOE-pee-ah) n. 1. an imaginary place or state in which the condition of life is extremely bad, as from deprivation, oppression, or terror. 2. a work describing such a place or state.
The opposite of utopia, then? Do the the dys- and u- prefixes signify opposites in other words?
suist (SOO-ist) n. one who follows his own inclinations; a self-pleaser.
Yikes--not what you'd think!
vinculum (VING-kyoo-lum) n. 1. a bond of union; a tie. 2. a straight line drawn over two or more mathematical terms denoting these are subject to the same operations by another term.
This HAS to be of Latin origin, surely?
Jackie
Don't know the other words but Sir Thomas More, famously executed by fat king Hank the eighth, wrote the original Utopia, coining the word from, I believe, Greek roots. 'ou' - meaning no or non or non-existent, and 'topia' meaning place. In essence, he was trying to say that this ideal place he was describing was 'nowhere' or no-place' - it didn't exist.
Because it was supposed to be an ideal place, however, the name he coined for it soon became synonymous with 'perfect place'. Hence dystopia, used as its opposite. For what it's worth, works like 1984 and Brave New World are considered 'dystopic' visions or stories about varieties of dystopia. At least, that's what we were taught in lit crit.
So no, I don't think, in any regular formation of words, that 'u' and 'dys' are used as opposites. It is mere happenstance that they came to be antonyms in this instance.
Of course, perhaps we could start the theory that the 'u' in utopia is a contraction of 'eu', meaning 'good', and that would make the two words more suitable complements to each other. What say you?
cheer
the sunshine warrior
eupepsia v. dyspepsia
Bingley
molesworths skool teecher waznt 2 gud:
http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/utopia/section1.html
I quote:
"...His methods of illumination, though, were perhaps too esoteric; Hythloday is described as a man who knew some Latin and a great deal of Greek, supposedly clueing the reader in to the Greek origin of Hythloday's name, which means "speaker of nonsense." All the names of the peoples and cities Hythloday mentions in his travels are similar clues. Utopia, for example is a pun on two Greek words, Eutopia (good place) and Outopia (no place). Sadly, very few people knew Greek at the time Sir Thomas More wrote..." [Italics mine]
cheer
the sunshine warrior
agelast... someone who never laughs.
He who agelast agebest. More pity to him.
