For me it is Mondegreen: which is a misheard lyric, word or phrase that becomes popular and gives it new meaning.
I guess you’ll like this video: https://youtu.be/Lwj_xBTNJ4I
I’m a big fan of contronyms, words with two opposite meanings. I first learned looking for a word to describe the change in “literally” from meaning, well, the literal meaning of something to also the figurative meaning.
Another good one is dust. You can dust your house to remove dust, but you can also dust a cake with powdered sugar.
Are they called shelled peanuts because they have their shells? or are they called shelled peanuts because they’ve been shelled, unshelling them? It’s literally ironic…
Also known as autoantonym (antonym of itself). e.g. “Because of my oversight, my project is finished.”
Did the person make an oversight, i.e. a mistake, and now his project is done for?
Or did the person’s well-adjusted oversight, i.e. management, help complete his project on time?
You would like german. The word “umfahren” can mean to drive around something or it can mean to run something over, depending on how you pronounce it.
I wonder if there’s a word for when a whole phrase has two opposite meanings without one of the words in it being a contronym (or using sarcasm, etc)
The example that made me think of this is a song lyric:
And she’s dancing like she’s never danced before!
There’s the intended meaning of better than ever… But if I were to dance it would also be like I’ve never danced before.
Janus words
After my alarm went off, I turned it off. (Off with 66 definitions, one is bound to be an antonym).
Tmesis, because you can make some unf*ckingbelievable words with it.
In linguistics this is called expletive infixation. It’s a good example of the inherent grammar of language that we are never directly taught but know anyway. For example, we know fanfuckingtastic is correct but fantafuckingstic is wrong.
But also fantasfuckingtastic seems fine, to me. Just one letter moved.
Fantastastic?
Hmm. I really struggled to type that and now I know why. Clearly my brain knew something was wrong but my conscious mi d was not seeing it
I had an Austin Powers shirt with lines similar to: ‘fanf*ckingtastic’ all over it , lol. There is a word for everything.
A tmesis T, awesome!
Eggcorn, when someone mistakenly modifies a word by misinterpreting a part of it. Example: Eggcorn (acorn).
I love amberlamps
Reminds me of [email protected]
I once did something sort of like this.
Back in the early days of the internet, I was on IRC playing trivia. Often people would talk about wag or wagging. I didn’t know exactly what it meant but I’m pretty good at inferring from context clues… usually.
They asked a Star Wars question and of course I knew it right away. I realized in the moment I was practically wagging in anticipation of being correct and I announced it as my first wag.
Of course, wag stood for wild ass guess so I had gotten the meaning completely backward. It still haunts me to this day, some 35+ years later, even though no one but me probably knew about my mistake.
My condolences.
You V-Sauce’s video, didn’t you?
I did, op almost definitely did!
Antimetaboles, maybe? It’s when you switch two words for poetic effect.
When the goin’ gets tough, the tough get goin’!
It’s fun to sound pseudo-poetic by trying to make one on the fly. Easier than a limerick
In this world, you either have bot aim, or you have aimbot.
It’s better to cum in the sink than to sink in the cum
Shakespeare was lowbrow too, ok
Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends
“I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy”?
The Sphinx : Your temper is very quick, my friend. But until you learn to master your rage…
Mr. Furious : …your rage will become your master? That’s what you were going to say. Right? Right?
The Sphinx : Not necessarily.
Lol Shakespeare the OG rapper:
From Family Guy: I’m not saying she’s a gold digger, but she ain’t messing with any…who isn’t she messing with?
Dig Golder?
Someone mentioned before that the line used in that family guy scene is an actual existing rap lyric. My guess is ‘old [explicative]’
I know how the original song goes lol. The radio edit had “messing with no broke, broke.” Which I thought made no sense. So much of hip hop is improved by listening uncensored.
I always laugh at it when they have to record 2 completely different versions of a song, such as D12’s Purple Hills vs the original version Purple Pills.
I’m a fan of semantic satiation, wherein you hear something so much that it doesn’t sound like a real word anymore.
Say it with me, boys:
Squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel squirrel.
Thanks, I hate it!
I’m not sure I’ll ever truly recover what “telephone” means… it’s like a fleeting hazy picture, disappearing as I turn to look
Looks like someone also watched that Vsauce video 🙃
No, he calls it an Emordnilap. I did see it but I knew of Semordnilaps for awhile now. I DO like Micheal Steven’s take on all of his linguistic subjects. Dude is a genius educator.
Edit: lmao I chuckled at your username.
“Aptronym”
When someone’s name is fitting for their occupation.
Tiger Woods (like the gold club)
Usain Bolt (who bolts quickly)
Etc.
Also whatever this is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo
My favorites are Dr. Richard Chopp (a urologist) and Les McBurney (a fire chief).
Years ago my mother had a pain doc named Dr. Miracle
I am going to pretend that he has a cousin named Moore McBurney, the notorious arsonist.
Armand Hammer’s fortune came from petroleum, not baking soda, but he supposedly bought a stake in Church & Dwight just for the pun of it.
Tim Apple.
“pseudo-anglicisms”. good examples are eye-shopping, relooking, face control and salaryman.
their origins are interesting and colorful.
It’s sort of a relief that there’s a term for that and that it occurs in more places than just the Netherlands, because I thought I was going insane.
i feel you. there was one time i had thought why two relatively common words existed. this ultimately solved the puzzle.
The infamous Handy that I’m typing this on.
the body bag one is also funny infamous for misinterpretations
Cool. Similar to anglicism. also, cognate comes to mind here since talking about words between languages.
Irony
like Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia being the fear of long words
I love that the term glottal stop is a perfect example of a glottal stop.
I think that might depend on accent. I promise it like bottle… which is also a glottal stop with those accents. Okay I pronounce it like gobble but with t’s instead of b’s.
Yeah in most North American dialects it’s produced with a tap/flap, not a glottal stop. Unfortunate, because it would be very fun if it were true for us.
Totally! Like aipohphobia is the fear of palindromes.
Not Aibohphobia?
Don’t you dare scaring me like that ever again!
And lisp having an S in it or rhotacism having an R. Ironic: yes, cruel: definitely!
Malaphors are my faves. Like saying "we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it*
Thank you! I’ve been trying to think of this word for years.
My favorite lately: “you don’t want to get two birds stoned at once”
I’m a glass half-assed kind of guy.
Another is Tautonyms: a word made of two of the same words eg. Yo-yo or AT-AT.
Cancan and gogo?
One of the cutest animals ever, Dik-dik
I enjoy “portmanteau”: the combination of two words to get a new meaning.“Brunch”
Malapropisms are great, too. “He hits from both sides of the plate. He’s amphibious”
Part of what makes Klein’s Don’t Starve game so quirky and fun is the rampant use of creatures that are portmanteau’s of other creatures.
Bugsnax also does this a bit with creatures like the Fryder.
ba-da-ba-ba-bug. I’m loving it.
That’s a new one. I didn’t know about malapropisms. There is a daily wordle style game I cannot think of what it is called for portmanteaus.
