That’s one way languages work; another is that definitions may vary among dialects.
“Snow flurries” sound like there should be a lot of snow.
Bolded for emphasis, that word evaded me for ages, I’m sure I was well into my 30s before I realized it meant beauty, I think it sounds to much like various synonyms for rotting like putrefaction.
Ditto and more. It was only within recent memory that I ever even heard the word, let alone found out what it means. It sounded, to me, like some specific kind of attitude and something very bad.
How about the word represent – Does it mean to present again?
The ambassador presented his credentials to the King. The King said: “That document doesn’t have all it’s i’s dotted and t’s crossed. Get that fixed, then represent it.”
Are the ambulatory lying on the ground wounded, or walking/driving themselves into hospital ?
The ambulatory do not need an ambulance, they are walking wounded. the later…
Just like a foreign power can allow activity X by using threat of sanctions (such as boycotts)… So activity X is sanctioned… by sanctions.
Which inspires one more…
If a girl refuses to buy brand X, is it a girlcott ?
Ruddy means red, but I used to think it meant big and fat. Misconstrued association with cheeks, I suppose.
Grizzled (as in grizzly bear) means “having hair that is grey or becoming grey,” but, probably because of grisly, I thought it meant something like “ferociously bad tempered.” I’ve only just noticed that “to grizzle” means “(especially of a young child) to cry continuously but not very loudly, or to complain all the time.”
How long should a Fort(een)night be?
People always say “You’re fucked” like it’s a bad thing.
Ferrous and non-ferrous metals sound reversed to me. I grew up thinking ferrous was similar to “fire”, and thus bright and shiny, such as gold, copper, silver, etc.
Had it exactly backwards for years.
Not really surprising. Formic acid (“Ameisensäure” in german, literally translated to “ant acid”) is produced by ants (family formicidae)
Terrific sound like a mix between terrible and horrific, so should be real bad, no? I always have to stop and think whenever terrific comes up in a text or conversation.
Cleave … to adhere firmly or to split apart. Well, which one is it?
Terrific used to mean “terrifying” but sort of shifted meaning over the years.
And non-Hodgkin lymphoma sounds like it should have a higher cure rate than Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Whenever I see the Britishism “slap-up,” I have to remind myself that it means “first-rate” and not “hastily cobbled together.” (It should help to know that the American equivalent is “bang-up,” but you rarely see that outside the expression “doing a bang-up job.”)
Hoi Polloi always sounds like it should mean Upper Class, I guess because of Hoity Toity.
And sempiternal should mean something like semi-paternal.
Before that, we come to preantepenultimate.
Fourth from last.
The slang term “Long hair” as in a music type always confused me as a child of the 70s rock bands…and I’ll honestly state I’m not certain I’ve it right even now.
No way! :eek: I always thought that “grizzly” meant rugged, coarse hair. Like, a prospector in the old west would have a big grizzly beard.
Also, like someone else up-thread, I thought a flurry was like a blizzard.
Tha’s entering into the corridor of uncertainty there, lad…