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From: osman@sprite.DEC (Eric,  617 273-7484, Burlington, Ma. 01803, USA)
Newsgroups: net.puzzle
Subject: words and their opposites
Message-ID: <2139@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 13-May-85 10:51:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.2139
Posted: Mon May 13 10:51:05 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Jun-85 06:28:39 EDT
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I know of some cases where something seems like it ought to be an opposite
but it's not.  For instance,

	What's the difference between LOOSENing your shoelaces and
	UNLOOSENING your shoelaces ?

For another example,

	We chop trees DOWN and then we chop them UP !

Douglas Hofstadter was once asking readers to submit a particular brand
of sentence (probably a self-referential one), and his request started
like this:

	Submit a not unreasonably long sentence that . . .

He went on to comment that "not unreasonably long" does NOT mean he's
looking for "reasonably long" ones !

Then of course there are synonyms that sound like antonyms, such as

	flammable vs. inflammable.

And personally, I can NEVER remember which way the words

	sectarian, non-secular, nonsectarian, secular mean.

Not to mention the word

	nonplussed.

/Eric