'Restive' and 'inflammable', at first sight, suggest meanings opposite to their actual meanings, so I call them inaptonyms, though surely someone can suggest a less inapt term for them than my inept effort. There's another, more interesting, type of inaptonym, namely words such as 'pulchritude', where the inaptness is more visceral than visual, if you know what I mean. More inaptonyms anyone?
c.f. GWBushisms - Now, don't missunderestimate me, I'm totally apolitical.
I would suggest 'pedagog' (or pedagogue, or paedagogue) in both categories.
BTW, if you don't mind a personal question, what does a lawyer do in Alice Springs? I have this mental picture of Alice Springs being much like Tombstone, Arizona. Perhaps you can enlighten my ignorance about northern Oz.
bob- if nothing else-- a lawyer would be keep busy with all the production companies that want to come to use Alice Springs as a set for a movie!
Isn't it written into the ausie constitution (or what ever legal document exist for ausie government) that every Oz movie has to have at least one scene set in Alice Springs? it sure seems that way from this side of the world.
It like tourist in NY-- we treat them fairly nice-- but just to make sure they have a real NY experience, we rip them off at least once... other wise how else would they know they experience the real NY? If nothing else, we at least make them pay retail-- or full price in the musuems!
what does a lawyer do in Alice Springs? AWAD, silly!
The language abounds in inaptonyms ( I do like that word ) , but the vino has killed too many brain cells for me to recall any right now. Catch me in the morning.
However, you may be able to answer this - an Aussie colleague recently told me " now don't tell any porky pies (lies)"...hehe , so where does this originate from?
Woohay, I feel less like a stranger now...straying from the topic at hand!!
now don't tell any porky pies (lies, so where does this originate from?
pork pies = porkies = porky pies = Lies
is one of many Rhyming slang phrases (usually of Cockney -London East End- origin) to become assimilated into (mainly UK and Aussie) English. Do an AWAD search on Cockney in the last 3 months and you may find lots more.
Rod
many Rhyming slang phrases (usually of Cockney -London East End- origin
Ta, Rod....Of course, I had researched this before and found a great site.... just never connected the Aussies to Rhyming Cockney Slang...reminds me a bit of Pig Latin, but this is so much more ingenious. Probably most invented and enjoyed by the "teapot lids"
How about priceless and infamous? The other one I think doesn't sound at all like what it is: wurm or wyrm for a dragon.
At last, someone actually got round to adding to my inaptonymic list! Squid, mate, no flies on you (as we like to say here in the Alice).
It is, I regret to say, all true about bad movies and Alice Springs. Last month a friend of mine was pulling focus on the set of some ghastly aussiewood extravaganza starring an animatronic kangaroo. The latest goss is that Julia Roberts is coming to town to immortalise Robyn Davidson's 70's desert trek: Camellen Brokovich?
BTW, in the meantime I've been reminded of another inaptonym: 'enervate'. And then there's 'uxorious', which sounds like anything but its meaning to me.
Enervate, certainly
Reactionary
Marianna
>surely someone can suggest a less inapt term
actually, inaptonym sounds too apt, thereby making inaptonym heterological (non-self-descriptive), or horribly inapt... ouch, my head hurts.
as an alternative, I propose diseuonym.
really rusty!
(Hmm, he's called rusty, which implies sort of red hair but i know red head are called bluey in Oz-- so he must have blue hair--
Just like Marge Simpson.. Interesting-- he didn't say he was retired, and Alice Springs doesn't seem like Palm Beach, --filled with blue haired grandmothers.. )
If you expect our thread to run straight-- blimey, you're at the wrong place!
Your syllogism, HoT, is (almost) impeccable. It rests however on the sadly erroneous assumption that I have hair. To speak of. Had Rusty hair, doubtless blue 'twould be. As it is, it's Rusty who's hairlessly blue.
While we're twisting threads, and speaking of lawyers in Alice Springs, I'll take this opportunity to pass on a linguistic inquiry by one of our judges earlier in the week. In the course of sentencing a local miscreant for a car sale fraud, in which vehicles were stolen in, say, Brisbane, and spirited to the outback with false plates and badges etc to be sold - a scam known as 'rebirthing' - His Honour said:
Nevertheless, in the scheme of things, his relative role in the conspiracy was comparatively minor. He did not engineer the scheme, finance it, cause the vehicles to be stolen, or the vehicles to be rebirthed - or is it reborn?Well?
or the vehicles to be rebirthed - or is it reborn?(Rusty, I picked the color to match your hair.
)
I say rebirthed. I think it has to match the actual name of the act to which it was assigned.
vehicles to be rebirthed - or is it reborn?
Ships can be birthed and rebirthed. Cars can be rebored and convertibles can be born-again.
Rod
and if all the cars in Oz were red convertables, it would be a red carnation...
I would think "born again" since that is the most common expression i know.. rebirthing cars happens here too-- only its a worse scam. some states have stricter laws about what constitutes "totaled" (a car that for insurance purposes is a total loss) so a car that is totaled in NY can be re-born in a used car lot in alabama. Of course the poor sucker who buys it, is buying a lemon. and such rebirthing in US is unethical-- but can be legal.
and the law for what is totaled vary a good deal-- coastal state, often have stronger laws about water damage than inland states.. and in general, norther states have stronger laws than southern.. but not always.
a car that is totaled in NY can be re-born in a used car lot in alabama
I have a friend here in NYS who totaled the same truck three times. Nothing illegal about it. You just buy it back from the insurance company for a ridiculously low price and it's yours to do with as you will. It has to pass inspection to be street-legal. Selling a car that has serious damage without telling the buyer may or may not be illegal according to state law. Stealing a car is illegal in most states. Knowingly selling stolen merchandise may also be illegal; consult your local laws.
a car that is totaled in NY can be re-born in a used car lot in alabamaIn the UK we use the term "ringing" for rebirth, or in the words of the Home Office document "swapping the identity of a vehicle they have stolen with that of a written-off or scrapped vehicle".
There is also "cut and shut" which is making one whole (but quite possibly dangerous) car from two write-offs or stolen cars.
Write-off=totalled of course.
There is a single agency in UK for vehicle registration and a proposal (don't know if it is law) for a Vehicle Identity Check for all reregistrations on written off vehicles to combat ringing. I'll just have to find a different hobby
Rod
"Ships can be birthed and rebirthed"
Dear Rod: This seems to be a bit of Britspeak. I would say "Ships can be berthed and re-berthed." My dictionary gives nothing under "birth" to match your usage.
Don't keel him over this Bill - I think it was just a slip
Ships can be birthed and rebirthed"
wwh would say "Ships can be berthed and re-berthed."
Bill, you are right! "i" before "e" except after sea! It was just a weak pun like the rest of it, sorry.
Rod
Is that full price or fool-price?
Is the use of words like 'bad' and 'wicked' to mean good inaptonymic?
Is the use of inaptonymic just taking things a little too far?
Hi, doc. I've really been enjoying your posts.
I just checked your bio--reckon you and Alex can exchange war stories.
And, good heavens--up until just now, I had been reading this topic as inapt
ronyms.
Anyway, you posted
Is the use of inaptonymic just taking things a little too far?Isn't that an inaptonymic question?
Isn't that an inaptonymic question?...and so making doc_comfort an inaptronymic name?
And, good heavens--up until just now, I had been reading this topic as inaptronyms.
oh, jackie... that's positively eerie; i'd been doing the same thing, and realized it only about two posts before yours. has it perhaps been typed as inaptronym somewhere previously? [too-lazy-to-do-a-search-e]. it seems unlikely that we would both experience the same mental epenthis.
b96 botches a chance to jerk jackie's jewelry
has it perhaps been typed as inaptronym somewhere previously?
http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=24845
b96 botches a chance to jerk jackie's jewelry
OMG. how did we miss that??? the pathetic thing is that i posted in that very thread today. [hopelessly-distracted-today-e] hi J!
Oops, fogot to declae, usty has stange, weid popensity to ovelook lette afte 'q' wheneve tying to ceate fesh tems on this boad.
To tie things up, by way of saying soy, and having egad to:
(a) this thead on inaptonyms;
(b) the detou heein to filmmaking in Alice Spings;
(c) Tswum's ecent hoi polloi post on the 'Begging the question' thead; and
(d) this week's AWAD theme being wods fo people named afte newspapes:
My local pape is the 'Centalian Advocate'. This is not entiely inapt: I, as it happens, am myself a Centalian advocate. In yesteday's issue thee ae no less than two beathless aticles about the pupotedly bugeoning Alice Spings film industy. The fist concens the guy who uns the shop acoss the oad fom my office. I often puchase confectionay fom him. But that's neithe hee no thee. Duing a ecent shoot he was plucked fom obscuity to be a stand-in fo some celebity. The stoy continues (eveting to nomal othogaphy):
But only a few weeks ago Ernie was rubbing shoulders with Hollywood's hoi polloi as an extra on the set of Warner Bros latest comedy blockbuster Down and Under.
What a gloriously malapropic use of an inapt(r)onym, due, no doubt, to 'Hoi' being a pseudohomonym for 'High'.
awful sounds to me like it should mean awe-inspiring or awesome, matriculate sounds like something along the lines of strangulate and livery like a human organ.
awful:
[I. objectively: Awe-inspiring.]
1. Causing dread; terrible, dreadful, appalling.
2. Worthy of, or commanding, profound respect or reverential fear.
3. Solemnly impressive; sublimely majestic.
4. a. slang. Frightful, very ugly, monstrous; and hence as a mere intensive deriving its sense from the context = Exceedingly bad, great, long, etc.
b. As adv. = awfully
[II. subjectively: Filled with awe.]
†5. Terror-stricken; timid, timorous, afraid. Obs.
6. Profoundly respectful or reverential.
...it seems unlikely that we would both experience the same mental epenthis.It only seems that way... in theory
.
Oh, Usty, you ae adoable!! I laughed out loud!! Muchly!!
Dear bridget96: Does mental epenthis give you a headache?
Epenthis (also called infixation) -- adding an extra syllable or letters in the middle
of a word.
Dr. Bill asks: Does mental epenthis give you a headache?
Perhaps it might give Ellen DeGeneres's ex-girlfriend a headache.
I think it was meant to be rhetorical.
Or rheumatic, as Ænigma would prefer.
And though I'm sure it's been mentioned before, Ænigma gives Ænigma as nihilism.
From the aptRonym thread, perchance?
This might be apter in the aptRonym thread, but hey, I'm here, so am delighted to report - from today's Centralian Advocate - that the winner of this year's Finke Desert Race (a local event for trail bikes & buggies BTW) was, I'm (r)apt to say, a certain Mr Vroom.
as an alternative, I propose diseuonymI never look at topics that go to five pages, but here I am, it's 5.30 at work, I'm restless, let's load 'em all up. A diseuonym should be a
caconym. 'Diseuonym', is a terrible word for it... oh wait...
Dis and
inept (not *
inapt, lesson on Old Latin stress available on old request) are Latin,
onym and
eu and
caco are good Greek, and fiercely proud of it.
Anyway, I'm here because I came across a good one recently:
bellibone. Spenser used it to mean a fair maid,
belle et bonne but that's not at all the mental impression I get.
Yes, I bet that makes a fair impression on th emaid as well!
BTW, at the risk of eggstracting the yolk, have you considered setting your display preferences to 99 per page, since this makes it quicker and more bearable to view the average ramble hereabouts?
I'd never thought of 'ex officio' as an inapt(r)onym, but if it's good enough for the editor of the Washington Post, it's good enough for this list.
In a recent review of a biography of Simone Weil, the Post refers to her as the 'ex officio patron saint of [I can't remember what of... probably either existentialists or anorexics, given that SW was indeed an anorexistentialist].
'Ex officio' means 'arising out of one's office', and not, as the WP clearly thinks*, 'unofficial'.
* which is not to say that I'm suggesting the WP thinks clearly - au contraire.
How about a self-referencial aptRonym: I learned yesterday of a Professor whose name is Harry Mirken. [ducking to avoid Dr Bill]
a Professor whose name is Harry Mirken
Without wishing to descend into the professorial murk myself, might I observe that, self-referentially speaking, the beatific patron saint of anorexistentialism was herself vilely inapt(r)onymic.