by Harold Fox

Your challenge in the puzzler in the preceding number of this column was to come up with seven words, each of which words to incorporate one of the following three-letter fragments, appearing within the sought word in the order given. This puzzler is titled "PARTWORDS" and is one of three found in the entry for October 17 (p. 277) in The Best of an Almanac of Words at Play, Merriam-Webster, 1999, by Willard R. Espy.

__ __WBO__ __WBE__ __RWO__ __BST__ __MPH__ __FTN__ __TSW__

Espy's solutions follow, with my own in brackets:

rowboat [cowboy], strawberry, overwork, lobster [grubstake], emphasis, [amphora], deftness [softness], boatswain [sportswear],

The topic for this number of "Calling All Verbivores" (CAV) was suggested to me by a question from David Michel, former editor of Between the Lines. He wrote, "I realized that 'filling in' and 'filling out' a form have the same meaning. Do you know of any other examples of antonyms having the same meaning?" As a matter of fact, I did know of a few examples, but I knew that I had come across some that I could not readily retrieve from my memory. I turned to my primary verbivorous hero, Richard Lederer and his book Crazy English, Pocket Books, 1998.

In Crazy English, Lederer writes of the

unique lunacy of the English language, in which your house can simultaneously burn up and burn down, in which you fill in a form by filling out a form, in which you add up a column of figures by adding them down, in which your alarm clock goes off by going on, in which you are inoculated for measles by being inoculated against measles, and in which you first chop a tree down—and then you chop it up.
(p. 23)

Strictly speaking, those examples are not quite antonyms, since they are of the form verb + preposition, rather than being single words, and the meanings being compared are those of the combined words. He gives a number of examples of words that do have antonymic meanings in the strict sense. The following list is only a sampling of those examples:

with - alongside; against
clip - fasten; separate
fast - firmly in one place; rapidly from one place to another
bolt - to secure in place; to dart away
trim - add things to cut away
dust - remove material from; spread material on
weather - withstand; wear away
left - departed from; remaining
temper - soften; strengthen
cleave - separate; adhere firmly
screen - view; hide from view
mortal - deadly; subject to death
wear - endure through use; decay through use
critical - opposed to; essential to
(op. cit. pp. 74-79)

In addition, Lederer writes

Indeed, the general rule of language is that when a single word develops two polar meanings, one will become obsolete. Occasionally, though, two diametrically opposed meanings of the same English word survive, and the technical term for these schizophrenics is contronym. More popularly, they are known as Janus-faced words because the Greek god Janus had two faces that looked in opposite directions. (op. cit., p. 73)

The last chapter of Crazy English is titled "The Last Word About Words" and subtitled "The Antics of Semantics." (pp. 175 ff.) In this chapter Lederer discusses the living character of language, including a mention of translation problems that arise from changes of meaning over time.

My newer hero, Willard Espy, has several entries in The Best of an Almanac of Words at Play on this same topic. For example, in the entry for May 17 (p. 136), titled "Schizophrenic Words," he cites these examples:

Some words have reversed meanings over the years. Bully is a bully example. To ban once meant to summon. Let, meaning to permit, meant to hinder in the old law term "without let or hindrance."

He ends the entry with this:

What does mean mean? Well, it means mean: "I mean it." It means mean; I mean you are a mean man." It means mean: "I mean you are a mean man of mean estate." And it means mean: "I mean you are a mean man of mean estate who hews to the golden mean." (Ibid.)

David, if you are reading this you will have recognized much of it. Please know that I am grateful for your question, both for the search it initiated and for the topic for this number of CAV.

Until next time, send me your solutions (or suggestions or complaints or stumpers) at hfox@juno.com or 2005 Burroughs Drive, Dayton, Ohio 45406.