January 16, 2004

English Is Weird

The opposite of "on" is off, and vis-versa. So if something is not "on", it's "off". So why do we say "not on-time" instead of "off-time" or "do not have time-off" instead of "have time-on"? And why do "on-time" and "time-off" have nothing to do with each other?

Strange...very strange....

Posted by enigma at January 16, 2004 06:12 PM
Comments

Why do you deplane but not deship? Why does flamible and inflamible mean the same thing? Or catenate and concatenate? And what about all those words that exist only in a negative. When you first get dressed in the morning, are you sheveled?

Posted by: Tim Budd at January 22, 2004 10:21 PM
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