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From: jeff@rtech.ARPA (Jeff Lichtman)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Semantic Reversals
Message-ID: <172@rtech.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 26-Feb-85 17:42:59 EST
Article-I.D.: rtech.172
Posted: Tue Feb 26 17:42:59 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Feb-85 09:16:09 EST
References: <101@mot.UUCP> <153@sbcs.UUCP>
Organization: Relational Technology, Berkeley CA
Lines: 35

> > There are some words  whose meanings have become perverted into
> > a near reversal of what their origins would suggest.
> ...
> 
> invaluable : really means very valuable
> 

Really means "impossible to put a value on".  Here the root is the verb "value"
instead of the noun.

> 
> prove : originally, meant "to test; to throw doubt upon", e.g. "the exception
> 	proves the rule".
> 
> -- 
> Saumya Debray
> SUNY at Stony Brook
> 

This is not the origin of the phrase "the exception proves the rule".  The idea
is that it would be impossible to have an exception to a rule if there were no
rule.  Fowler's "Modern English Usage" explains this very well, but I can't lay
my hands on it right now.  I'll post an excerpt at a later time.

Has anyone noticed that in most of these cases the word in question hasn't
really reversed its meaning through usage, but instead looks as if it means
the opposite of what it really means?  There is usually a good explanation for
how this came about.

An example of a word which has reversed its meaning is "bad" in modern slang,
which some people use to mean "good" ("Hey, that's a really bad car, man.").
Can anyone think of some other "real" reversals?
-- 
Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.)
aka Swazoo Koolak