Auto-antonyms

[Linguaphile]

Connacht Irish:
gabh come
gabh go

Munster Irish:
gaibh come
gaibh go

Shelta:
bug give
bug take, get

[Karavinka]

Korean:

잘 했다 : You did well
잘 했다 : You screwed up ('잘' is often extra stressed and lengthened)

e.g. 이대로 잘 하면 그냥 망할듯
literally: If it goes well like this, I'll be in trouble
implied: It's screwed and if it continues like this I'll be in trouble

시원하다 : To be cool, breezy
시원하다 : To feel pleasant inside a hot tub or after eating hot spicy stew

Should be nothing but breezy, but that's just the way it is.

자리 있어요 : This seat is taken
자리 있어요 : This is an unoccupied seat

Literally "there's a seat", this can be a semantic confusion unless you pay close attention to the context. If you ask someone if the seat is taken, and the seat isn't taken, the answer will be 아니요 (No), as in: no one has taken this seat.

못 본지 오래됐다 : It's been a long time that we haven't seen each other
본지 오래됐다 : It's been a long time since we met each other

This can be confusing since the first is the negative of the second. And yet the two sentences mean the same -- well, you can express the same idea in English.

끊었다 : Quit
끊었다 : Registered, signed up

e.g. 학원 끊었다 : I signed up for the class OR I quit the class

[Linguaphile]

끊었다 : Quit
끊었다 : Registered, signed up

e.g. 학원 끊었다 : I signed up for the class OR I quit the class

Reminds me of:
resign /ɹɪˈzaɪn/ to quit (a job), give up
resign /ɹiːˈsaɪn/ to sign again
The latter is more often written as re-sign to avoid this confusion but I have seen it used this way "in the wild" causing a moment of panic with the following email received by an acquaintance: "At your earliest convenience please stop by HR to resign for next year" with the intended meaning of "to sign a contract again for next year" but understood as having the opposite meaning, "to quit your job effective next year."

[Linguaphile]

hincha fan, supporter
hincha dislike, grudge

hinchar to support, to cheer on, to rally around
hinchar to annoy, to anger

[cHr0mChIk]

apprendre to teach
apprendre to learn

leren - to learn
leren - to teach

učiti to learn
učiti to teach

mëndoj to learn
mëndoj to teach
(possibly the verb nxë also has the same both meanings)

[Karavinka]

いいです can mean either:

* It's good / I want it, or
* I don't want it, I'm fine without it.

ex.

どっちにしますか？ Which one do you want?
これがいいです。I'll take this one / I want this one.

傘、貸しましょうか？Do you want to borrow my umbrella?
いいです。No / I don't want to.

[linguoboy]

Munster Irish:
gaibh come
gaibh go

Kind of curious where you found this. It's unusual for Irish verbs to be cited in the past tense form; traditionally, the 1S present is used (on the model of Latin) and, more recently, the 2P imperative has become common. (For Munster Irish, these would be, respectively, gabhaim and gabh, pronounced as if spelled gobhaim and gobh.) Moreover, while the sense of "go" is common in Connemara Irish, I've rarely come across it in Munster texts, where the usual meaning is "take". In Cork, at least, the meaning "go" is most commonly found in reference to the course of a river or stream, e.g. Gabhann sí fé dhrochad "It goes under a bridge".

In any case, here's an example of Korean antonym I found while looking for the equivalent of "firewall":

방화 (放火) /pa(:)nghwa/ arson
방화 (防火) /panghwa/ fire prevention

(Historically, the /a/ in the first word was long, but this distinction is absent in most contemporary varieties.)

[Karavinka]

If Hanja differences count, then...

연패(連覇) : Victory streak. Used only for the final winners of a tournament or a league.
연패(連敗) : Losing streak. Losing individual matches in a tournament or a league also counts.

If a team wins successive matches within a tournament or a league, the term is 연승.

[Linguaphile]

Munster Irish:
gaibh come
gaibh go

Kind of curious where you found this.

I can try to find it when I have time, but at the moment I have no idea - it was months ago. What I do remember is that I found it in the process of investigating Shelta bug, which if I remember correctly originates from Connacht gabh, but with a change in meaning in addition to the metathesis and other changes. I imagine that's also why I found it in that form - it's the form that shows the connection to Shelta bug.

[Linguaphile]

If Hanja differences count, then...

연패(連覇) : Victory streak. Used only for the final winners of a tournament or a league.
연패(連敗) : Losing streak. Losing individual matches in a tournament or a league also counts.

If a team wins successive matches within a tournament or a league, the term is 연승.

LOL - yes, actually I posted the same pair here several months ago (so yes, I definitely think it counts! ). I appreciate your elaboration about usage!

연패 successive victories, consecutive wins (連覇, Japanese れんぱ)
연패 successive losses, consecutive losses (連敗, Japanese れんぱい)

[linguoboy]

I found it in the process of investigating Shelta bug, which if I remember correctly originates from Connacht gabh, but with a change in meaning in addition to the metathesis and other changes. I imagine that's also why I found it in that form - it's the form that shows the connection to Shelta bug.

Does Shelta incorporate backslang of some kind? Because otherwise I confess to not seeing much of a connexion between [ɣɔvʲ] and [bʌɡ] (or [bʊɡ]?).

[Linguaphile]

I found it in the process of investigating Shelta bug, which if I remember correctly originates from Connacht gabh, but with a change in meaning in addition to the metathesis and other changes. I imagine that's also why I found it in that form - it's the form that shows the connection to Shelta bug.

Does Shelta incorporate backslang of some kind? Because otherwise I confess to not seeing much of a connexion between [ɣɔvʲ] and [bʌɡ] (or [bʊɡ]?).

Yes, extensively. You know Shelta is a cryptolect, right? If you don't see the connection between a Shelta word and the word it is derived from, that's kind of the point. It uses all kinds of methods to obscure words, with backslang being one of the principle ones, often in combination with other changes like rearranging of syllables, de-aspiration, de-nasalization, addition of extra phonemes or mutation of vowels and so on. Some examples of simple backslang are words like kam (son) from mac and gop (kiss) from póg. Then there are words like rodas (door) from doras, garéad (money) from airgead, dura (bread) from arán, and so on.

[linguoboy]

Yes, extensively. You know Shelta is a cryptolect, right? If you don't see the connection between a Shelta word and the word it is derived from, that's kind of the point.

Which suggests to me that any proposed derivation of a Shelta word is a conjecture at best.

"Bug" in the sense of "go" occurs in English as well in the expression "bug out", which is thought to date back to WWII. The proposed derivation is from the image of bugs swarming out of a destroyed building. In the absence of compelling evidence, it seems at least as plausible to me that Shelta "bug" could have a similar derivation as that it derives from gabh.

[Linguaphile]

Yes, extensively. You know Shelta is a cryptolect, right? If you don't see the connection between a Shelta word and the word it is derived from, that's kind of the point.

Which suggests to me that any proposed derivation of a Shelta word is a conjecture at best.

"Bug" in the sense of "go" occurs in English as well in the expression "bug out", which is thought to date back to WWII. The proposed derivation is from the image of bugs swarming out of a destroyed building. In the absence of compelling evidence, it seems at least as plausible to me that Shelta "bug" could have a similar derivation as that it derives from gabh.

Well, don't jump to the conclusion that there's an "absence of compelling evidence" or invent entirely unattested etymologies without doing at least a little research first. I didn't provide any "compelling evidence" in my earlier post because it's the auto-antonyms thread, not an etymology thread; the only reason I mentioned the etymology at all was in answer to your question about where I'd found the Irish forms. But since you asked....

While it's true that Shelta etymologies often can't be known for sure, they've been studied pretty extensively and there are known and generally-accepted patterns of sound changes and word modification, just as with etymologies in any language, and - just as for etymologies in other languages - a possible etymology that follows those known patterns is generally considered more plausible (not guaranteed, but more plausible) than possible etymological sources that don't follow those patterns. Some of these patterns were mentioned in my previous post, just after the part that you quoted.

From your posts I can tell that you aren't very familiar with Shelta, but a look at virtually any source regarding Shelta etymology will show that backslang based on Irish words, in combination with other changes, is one of the principle sources of the Shelta lexicon. Bug from Irish gabh does follow those known patterns (gabh→bhag→bag→bug); bug from English bug doesn't. Another reason to discount your "bug from English" theory as less plausible (and to support the "gabh" one) is that the earlier form of Shelta bug was Old Shelta bag, with the form bog also attested. (Also "bug" in Shelta far predates the WWII "bug out" meaning in English, although I'm not sure if you were suggesting a direct connection there or just citing an example of "bug" being used to mean "go"; if it's the latter, it's also relevant that the Shelta word has among its primary meanings "give" and "take" but less commonly if at all "go", so the comparison to English "bug out" is *extremely* tenuous.)

The known patterns for Irish etymologies in Shelta are:

• metathesis (including backslang)
• rearranging of syllables
• de-aspiration
• de-nasalization
• addition of phonemes as prefixes or suffixes
• shifting of word stress (to the first syllable)
• mutation of vowels
• substitution of initial consonants
• apocope

and very commonly more than one of these patterns applies simultaneously to a given word.
In other words, gabh (original Irish)→bhag (backslang)→bag (substitution of intial consonants)→bug (mutation of vowels) is entirely plausible for a Shelta etymology.

In Shelta: An Historical and Contemporary Analysis by Alice Binchy (available online) says:

According to MacAlister, nearly every consonant is de-aspirated in some instances in Shelta: and this rule is usually combined with some other, such as reversal, as in bug from gabh; gre from eingh; aburt from ar bith.

The MacAlister referenced there is R. A. Stewart MacAlister. Here's a definition and etymology from MacAlister's The Secret Languages of Ireland (Cambridge University Press 1937):

bug ‘to give’; in a variety of senses. Can you bug Shelta? (L′) ‘Can you talk Shelta?’ Bug me a gåp ‘Give me a kiss’; buga ‘I will give’ (β 37, 66).Irish gabh.

A related word with a similar etymology (from the same source by MacAlister), providing another example following a similar pattern to that of gabh→bug, is this one (gabhāil→bagail):

bagail ‘taking’, ‘catching’. S’guidh a bagail ar mo ghil ‘it is raining’ (W), properly skai a’ bagail ar mo dʹīl ‘Water a-catching of myself’. Perversion of Irish gabhāil [gawålʹ] ‘taking’

[lu:ka]

Télécharger - to download
Télécharger - to upload

To resolve the ambiguity the calque uploader is sometimes used (at least in the IT jargon).

One curious thing I have recently noticed is that the calque uplaoder is sometimes used in the wrong meaning (i.e. instead of download).

In the examples below, from the intranet of the company where I am actually working, the software is to be get from a remote server and installed on the local machine:

La dernière version compatible est donc la version xxx. Ci-après le lien pour uploader cette dernière version.
(The latest compatible version is xxx. Below is the link to upload the latest version).

Via le lien suivant xxx, uploader le ZIP de l'update que vous souhaitez installer.
(Via the following link xxx, upload the ZIP of the update you want to install).

So far, I have seen it used that way only here. I wonder whether it is an error of the author or if they actually have a different point of view in the upload/download direction.

[Linguaphile]

I wonder whether it is an error of the author or if they actually have a different point of view in the upload/download direction.

Upload programs onto your computer, download files from your computer into the internet....

(I mean that could actually make sense, if it were how everyone had been saying it all along, but it's... not. Good reason to stick with télécharger!)

[lu:ka]

I wonder whether it is an error of the author or if they actually have a different point of view in the upload/download direction.

Upload programs onto your computer, download files from your computer into the internet....

(I mean that could actually make sense, if it were how everyone had been saying it all along, but it's... not. Good reason to stick with télécharger!)

Exactly LOL

[lu:ka]

personne [noun] = person, individual
personne [pronoun] = nobody

[Linguaphile]

s’ennuyer [avec] to be bored [with]
s’ennuyer de to miss, to long for

[Linguaphile]

kilométrico endless, too long to measure in specific terms
kilométrico train ticket for riding a specific distance