# Words You Think Mean the Opposite **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 15, 2011, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-think-mean-the-opposite/574725 "2011-03-15T01:17:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2011, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-think-mean-the-opposite/574725/61 "2011-03-15T21:29:39Z")
“Spurious” reminds me of spewing furiously. ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2011, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-think-mean-the-opposite/574725/62 "2011-03-15T21:32:16Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > “Spurious” reminds me of spewing furiously. “The hamster drank too much and got spuriously sick behind the bar.” You may be onto something. ---
**Author:** ![Lorski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Lorski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lorski)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2011, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-think-mean-the-opposite/574725/63 "2011-03-15T21:56:30Z")
> [@manila](#): > > Sanguine sounds to me as though it should mean cool and calm when it means quite the opposite. Be damned. I thought it meant that, too. But I’ve never heard it used, just read it, does that mean I’m excused? 😛 Ignorance fought. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2011, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-think-mean-the-opposite/574725/64 "2011-03-15T22:04:57Z")
In the field of computers and software, the adjective “transparent (to the user)” implies that the component or enhancement is completely invisible to the user. But that’s always sounded wrong to me; I think it naturally implies that the added component is highly visible, as if the user can see its inner workings. ---
**Author:** ![GilaB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@GilaB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GilaB)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2011, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-think-mean-the-opposite/574725/65 "2011-03-15T22:18:37Z")
‘Svelte’ has always sounded to me like it _should_ be describing someone really curvy. ---
**Author:** ![Find\_Friends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2011, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-think-mean-the-opposite/574725/66 "2011-03-15T22:30:35Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > I gather that the “raveling” of fibers originally meant their becoming tangled and twisted together in a disorganized way; to “unravel” was to separate them in an organized way. Apparently the idea of tangled fibers became confused with the idea of woven fibers (i.e., twisted together in an _organized_ way), so the useful meaning of the root word was lost. Sounds about right. Thank you * * * I don’t know whether anyone will find this interesting, but I was personally unaware of the word \*ravel \* until I studied several programming languages in my mid-20’s including _ **APL** _. (Darn! I forgot that this particular public PC has issues and won’t let me open a window for an article to link.) It was a language that eventually was considered more trouble than it was worth, but boy, it couldn’t be beat (at the time) for its flexibility in directly handling mathematical operations, especially ones extended over arrays of 1,2, or higher dimension. Mathematica came along without the numerous disadvantages. # Those who get sqicked out by anything mathematical should skip to the last sentence of this post. One such operation was “ravel” and it meant take an array, such as a matrix (two dimensional array), and reduce it to a single row of values, called a one-dimensional array, or vector. For instance, if you had, stored as the 2x3 variable A: 3 1 4 1 5 9 (The spaces make the number values separate) … Now, if you established that B was the “ravel of” A by: B \<- ,A “Set B as the ravel function on A” Then printing out B would give you: 3 1 4 1 5 9. In a book by (IIRC) Iverson he went out of his way to encourage readers to note with a dictionary that \*ravel \*(general meaning) was equivalent to _unravel._ 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-think-mean-the-opposite/574725/67 "2011-03-16T00:15:42Z")
> [@GilaB](#): > > ‘Svelte’ has always sounded to me like it _should_ be describing someone really curvy. Well, it kind of depends on if you’re using the real definition of curvy or the personal ads definition, doesn’t it? Used to be that you could be slender and curvy both. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-think-mean-the-opposite/574725/68 "2011-03-16T01:11:41Z")
True conversation I once had with a co-worker: Me: “Did you question that prisoner about the fight he was in yesterday to see if he had any more information?” Him: “Yes I did. He recanted everything he said yesterday.” Me: “Really. So what’s his story now?” Him: “What do you mean?” Me: “What does he say today about the fight?” Him: “The same thing he said yesterday. I told you he recanted what he said.” Me: “You have no idea what that word means, do you.” ---
**Author:** ![Invisible\_Chimp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f05b48/32.png) [@Invisible\_Chimp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Invisible_Chimp)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-think-mean-the-opposite/574725/69 "2011-03-16T01:32:43Z")
Bucolic sounds like disease infested, hellish, but isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-think-mean-the-opposite/574725/70 "2011-03-16T01:49:52Z")
I always thought that “uvula” sounds more like it should be part of one’s vagina, rather than the little hangy-thing in your throat that controls your gag reflex. Maybe because it sounds similiar to “vulva”. ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-think-mean-the-opposite/574725/71 "2011-03-16T02:06:26Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > I always thought that “uvula” sounds more like it should be part of one’s vagina, rather than the little hangy-thing in your throat that controls your gag reflex. Maybe because it sounds similiar to “vulva”. _Whooo boy_, you **do not** want to confuse those two things. Trust me on this. ---
**Author:** ![MacCat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maccat/32/216_2.png) [@MacCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacCat)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-think-mean-the-opposite/574725/72 "2011-03-16T02:17:08Z")
> [@Bytegeist](#): > > _Whooo boy_, you **do not** want to confuse those two things. > > Trust me on this. And don’t get the vuvuzela into the mix… ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-think-mean-the-opposite/574725/73 "2011-03-16T02:38:45Z")
> [@Angel\_of\_Doubt](#): > > There’s always the most inappropriately-sonicky (thanks for the word, **purple cow**!), the slightly archaic one, “droll”. For a long time thought it meant dull and depressing. But Merriam-Webster online defines this word as “having a humorous, _whimsical_, or odd quality..” etc. italics mine- > > whimsical/droll > droll/whimsical > > Nope, no matter which way you put it, it doesn’t seem to fly. The closest i can imagine “droll” to humorous is maybe a kind of dry sarcastic humor, but _whimsical_? “Droll” has suffered the same fate as “Nimrod”–it’s used sarcastically more than it’s used sincerely–often as a response to sarcastic humor “Oh, _verry_ droll!” (Spoken in a Fred Flintstone voice.) ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-think-mean-the-opposite/574725/74 "2011-03-16T03:11:18Z")
Naw, I never confuse words like this. I recently bought a book online, and it finally arrived today. It’s a history of a particular subject. The book is way smaller that I imagined it, and skips over a lot of important details. Apparently I don’t know the difference between a **complete** history and a **concise** history. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-think-mean-the-opposite/574725/75 "2011-03-16T03:21:40Z")
\*\*Credit \*\*and \*\*debit \*\*mean the opposite of what I thought. ---
**Author:** ![VanillaGorilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f9ae1b/32.png) [@VanillaGorilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VanillaGorilla)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-think-mean-the-opposite/574725/76 "2011-03-16T08:16:12Z")
Terrific sounds kind of like a mix between terrible and horrific. ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-think-mean-the-opposite/574725/77 "2011-03-16T14:05:10Z")
> [@VanillaGorilla](#): > > Terrific sounds kind of like a mix between terrible and horrific. I believe “terrific” is etymologically related to “terror/terrible/terrify” and such. So, “terrific” indeed used to mean something like “terrifying”, centuries ago. For whatever reason, the meaning changed completely. ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-think-mean-the-opposite/574725/78 "2011-03-16T15:02:32Z")
My ex husband used “sporadic” to mean “spontaneous” so often that I finally had to look it up for myself. This was especially weird when we would just have some random," Hey its two pm on a Tuesday, lets-go-for-it wild sex" and then he would say “Wow, that was sporadic”. Ummm, no. Nice try honey, and because you can’t use a dictionary, it will be a long irregular interval until we have sex again.\*(Since he’s an ex now, I am curious… would “never ever again are you out of your flipping mind\*\*” be a predictable interval, or an unpredictable interval?) Just so I know how sporadic sex with my ex husband is. I’m not good with probability equations and all that. \*I wouldn’t have really done that. \*\*I am really doing this. I mean if he asked. But we haven’t spoken in about 5 years so it is extremely unlikely to ever come up. ---
**Author:** ![manila](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@manila](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manila)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-think-mean-the-opposite/574725/79 "2011-03-16T15:15:15Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Well, if you subscribe to the old [“Four Temperaments”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Temperaments) theory, someone who’s cool and calm would be **phlegmatic** , which is completely different from **sanguine** (upbeat, extroverted, talkative). > Here’s mine: My mind keeps wanting to give “bemused” a similar meaning to “amused.” Damn! now I think phlegmatic should mean you have a blocked nose!! ---
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-think-mean-the-opposite/574725/80 "2011-03-16T16:18:34Z")
I confuse atypical and typical from time to time. You’d think the opposite meanings would be clear enough…☹ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-think-mean-the-opposite/574725.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-think-mean-the-opposite/574725.md?page=5)