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Words that are their own antonyms
1. Here
2. What's up with hedge funds?
3. Austan Goolsbee on American Idol
5. Profile of Claudia Goldin, via Greg Mankiw
Posted by Tyler Cowen on April 26, 2007 at 10:22 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink
Comments
As you are using the word "here", it is also its own antonym, because you really mean it's not here at all, but over there at the other URL.
Posted by: Anon at Apr 26, 2007 10:59:40 AM
Anon, well-challenged...
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Apr 26, 2007 11:02:56 AM
Sheryl Crow should sell toilet paper offsets. You could send rice and powered milk to countries that don't use paper to wipe their bumms, in exchange for the use of more than one square.
Let's be the middle men (people).
Posted by: ajkrik at Apr 26, 2007 11:25:42 AM
Goolsbee's conclusion is enormously depressing.
Posted by: Donald A. Coffin at Apr 26, 2007 11:32:35 AM
I've got some more squirrely contronyms:
bad -- bad or good ("Oh dude, that was SO bad!")
this -- this or that
coke -- Coke or Pepsi (some US regions)
literally -- literally or metaphorically (hey, don't blame me for how people are now using it!)
really -- literally or metaphorically
wasted -- put to full tolerable use OR not used ("Man, he came home so wasted!")
Posted by: Person at Apr 26, 2007 12:02:59 PM
Person:
If you follow the link, you will notice that slang has already been accounted for:
"Finding such idiosyncrasies in slang is much easier. The word 'bad' can be used as slang to mean 'good.' The word 'bomb' has two slang meanings: 'failure' (as usually used in the United States) and 'success' (as usually used in the United Kingdom)."
Posted by: Jeremy at Apr 26, 2007 12:31:36 PM
Jeremy: That is not in the link; it must be in the link within the link, which I can't access here.
And, I specifically avoided transatlantic inversions.
And, the list that *is* in the link uses a (non-transatlantic inverse) slang term: "He plays a mean game." Turnabout is fair play.
Posted by: Person at Apr 26, 2007 12:48:49 PM
Many years ago The Economist had an article on these kinds of words. I don't remember many of the specifics, but I do remember their joke about "the pharmacist who dispenses with accuracy."
Posted by: JW at Apr 26, 2007 1:00:20 PM
Regarding carbon offsets:
That Financial Times article is damning. Intuitively it feels that carbon offsets are a scam, and it seems they are. If I buy one of those newfangled mercury-filled lightbulbs that emit nasty mercury vapor when I drop and break it on my shag rug, and I do so because I think it saves me money over the life of the bulb, I effectively get to sell carbon offsets for that usage even though the carbon reduction was going to take place regardless of whether or not I sold those offsets.
Another type of inadvertant accounting "fraud" comes from fungibility. For example, perhaps a steel company in Germany agrees to stop producing steel in a given plant, and to shut it down, and sells the carbon offsets. There is now less steel in Germany to be purchased, and a plant in India supplies the otherwise unfulfilled demand. No net loss in carbon emissions, but there is a carbon offset so that folks like Al Gore can (incorrectly) feel superior about living in a house that emits more GHG's than one or two dozen Americans.
I am also reminded of the scam that is the basis for The Producers, namely, and I am parphrasing here: "An unscrupulous producer can make more money from a flop than from a hit via selling more than 100% of the equity in the play". There is nothing stopping these guys from engaging in accounting fraud. Indeed I strongly suspect the jet set would prefer not to know that their "carbon offsets" were sold several times over and that they were in actuality unwittingly emitting GHG's on net. In other words, the people buying this stuff aren't going to do their due diligance.
So in addition to likely deliberate fraud, there is also substantial inadvertant intellectual "fraud" committed by those who double count that which would've taken place anway (e.g. my lightbulb story or my German steel story).
Posted by: happyjuggler0 at Apr 26, 2007 4:02:52 PM
Cleave: to separate, to join
Posted by: Bob Dobalina at Apr 26, 2007 10:44:42 PM
What Austan Goolsbee is not mentioning is the advent of technology that allows networks to charge viewers when they vote over the phone. American Idol brings a huge audience and a typical show will have 30 million votes.
Each vote is x$ dollars in profit (.40 cents?). This makes this sort of "interactive shows" very profitable.
I imagine that voting patterns are more correlated with controversy than with quality.
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Posted by: 謝文豪 at Apr 2, 2008 2:24:10 AM
