• someguy3@lemmy.world
    0·
    17 days ago

    Heh good insight.

    (Ps I also have these thoughts about breaking words down (unicorn is uni-corn) and some people get really snarky about it. Don’t let bad comments get to you.)

  • Resol van Lemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    15 days ago

    The opposite of “upside down” is not “downside up”, but “right-side up”.

    The opposite of “right-side up” is not “left-side down”, but “upside down”.

    Ladies, gentlemen, and all in between. The English language.

    • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      17 days ago

      I think the pronunciation, specifically the blending of the end of “upside” and beginning of “down”, turns it into one of those compound words that your brain interprets as an independent word, rather than a combination of its composite parts.

      • someguy3@lemmy.world
        0·
        17 days ago

        I think this is the case for a lot of words. It ceases to be a combination of words and it’s just one word. Then in the shower you break it down and ohhh.

      • s38b35M5@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        17 days ago

        Unused to wonder if the radio announcers that are always reciting the station call letters found that the letters stopped sounding like individual sounds, and the whole recitation became a sort of “word” for them. Like “You’re listening to 102.9FM WBLM!” Did it stop being “double-you bee ell emm,” and turn into more of a mashup of “dubbleyabeeyelmm”?

        True, the difference is pretty subtle, especially to a listener, but I wonder strange things sometimes…

        • Kiosade@lemmy.ca
          0·
          17 days ago

          As a fellow wonderer of strange things, all I have to say is keep wondering, my friend :)

    • Binette@lemmy.mlOP
      0·
      17 days ago

      It’s not really that I interpret it in another way, but I never really thought about the structure of the word 😅

      • db2@lemmy.world
        0·
        17 days ago

        Go further. For example, people say ‘gypped’ without knowing it’s a pejorative reference to the word ‘Gypsy’ which is itself a pejorative of the Romani.

        • ALQ@lemmy.world
          0·
          17 days ago

          I remember learning this about 20ish years ago and telling my then-sister in law about it when I explained why I wasn’t going to use it anymore. I got told I had a stick up my ass, and this was by a marginalized (gay, immigrant) woman. (Somewhat unrelated note - very grateful she’s a former relation.)

          So glad people have been learning and I’ve been hearing “gypped” less and less in recent years.

          • ricdeh@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            17 days ago

            Some words have simply entered common use and become decoupled from their former meaning. Maybe your acquaintance was right.

        • j4k3@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          17 days ago

          My favorite recently is sophist from the pejorative Platonic definition. It really puts words like sophisticated in a different etymological light and subtle contextual meaning.

      • flerp@lemm.ee
        0·
        17 days ago

        I’ve definitely had a similar feeling with band names and brand names, etc. You’re just so used to hearing them that they are their own thing without being the component words that the name contains.

      • Albbi@lemmy.ca
        0·
        17 days ago

        Yeah, actually I had never thought about the structure of the word either. Thanks for the great shower thought!

      • Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        17 days ago

        It could be to do with something called “ablaut reduplication”. Very basically English has a - kind of - untaught sound order that native speakers inherently apply to the language. Wikipedia will have an article to explain it better. Specifically the vowel order I-A-O. A great example is the phrase “Bish bash bosh” which is getting coverage recently. (One notable exception is “shit, shower, shave” but that is probably down to the chronology of the actions.)

      • CoggyMcFee@lemmy.world
        0·
        16 days ago

        A good rule of thumb is that any word etymology that is an acronym is probably false if the word is more than 100 years old.

    • Binette@lemmy.mlOP
      0·
      16 days ago

      In French, it’s also the same origin (nouvelles = news; nouvelle/nouveau = new)

  • InFerNo@lemmy.ml
    0·
    17 days ago

    I’m my language it’s “bottom up” (ondersteboven).

    Also came to a similar realization in my language with “averechts”, which means the other way around.

    Rechts = right (side, from my pov)

    Averechts = ave ( dialect for “your”) right side.

    You’re basically communicating “my right or your right”. Asking for right or left can be done by saying rechts or averechts.

    Also besides ondersteboven and averechts, we have achterstevoren, which means back side in front.

  • Konala Koala@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    17 days ago

    And then someone tries that again with “Just realized that “downside up” means “the down side is up”, making it downside up” to see if it makes anymore sense.

  • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    16 days ago

    This reminds me of the time I had a co-worker tell me “That’s why they call it ‘work’. 'Cause you’re working!”