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When a friend of mine asked if it was possible to be stitious, as well as superstitious, I headed for the dictionary.

I looked at the different meanings of a lot of supers: besides as in supertax, excess as in suspersensitive, surpassing as in superman, and the one my friend needed, over or above as in superintendent or supervisor.

Stitious isn't a recognized word today, but a long time ago it meant stand, and the whole word, superstitious, meant to stand upon or over, perhaps as a fearful witness or survivor.

As I trolled through several dictionaries, I thought about words like over and under and their opposites, below and above, and I wondered how they would appear to people learning English as a second language. Easy to remember that under is the reverse of over, but if you understand, can you also overstand?

Could there be an overcut or an overdog? Certainly there is an overpass for the underpass, but would you want to be seen wearing overpants? And even though an overtaker may end up with an undertaker, they are hardly opposites, are they?

Elementary school children know that while you can be overwhelmed, underwhelmed won't do. The whelm comes from a word meaning to cover up completely, so if you were underwhelmed, you'd be even deeper in it.

We may have an overdraft but not an underdraft, enjoy an overture but not an underture, and there are no opposites for overkill and overcast, underfoot and undertow.

Now, consider in and out. Inside and outside are OK but the opposite of income is not outcome, and though indoors and outdoors may be a couple, it doesn't mean in-house and outhouse are.

Outlaw is not the opposite of in-law, however much some in-laws might wish it was.

The English language student who finds that there is famous for infamous and fallible for infallible might be forgiven for thinking there is fant for infant because there was once. To my surprise, infant comes from two Latin words meaning not and speak. An infant was one who didn't speak. Did you know that?

This illustrates a further complication for the language student with a logical mind because when something is 'in', it is usually right; and when it is 'out', it is usually wrong. But often, the in- at the beginning of many English words is negative. For example, inactive, inadequate, inconsiderate. Just when the student thinks this is the rule, along come the positives: infiltrate, incentive and inaugurate.

In and out then, simple as they seem, turn out to be two of our most complex and confusing prefixes. First we are lulled into thinking we know what's going on with inboard and outboard, inbound and outbound but then we find here is no outhabit for inhabit? Can those who are in-between find themselves out-between? And what about instanding for outstanding?

I had a young French friend who said he liked English girls very much but those he dated had to realize he was only interested in one-night standing.

So let's spare a thought for all those adults who are trying to become familiar with the ins and outs of English.

In and out and on and off and up and down - all such innocent sounding little words, aren't they?

Fairy tale words, once-upon-a-time-words from play school and kindergarten, familiar to us all our lives. Who would think they could be mines lurking just beneath the surface of the language, waiting to explode at any moment?

Thats really Heavy,

Hi Darlene,

I just loved your post. As you know I have posted about "words" before and totally appreciate the way you so thoroughly explored just how complex our language is.

Not that other languages are not as complex, but English is the most complex language. While there are many ways to say the same thing with different words and phrases, many times there are very subtile differences in words that appear to have the same meaning. And indeed words have different meanings in different parts of the world or within my own country.

For instance, when I lived in Tennesee, which is one of the southern states, if someone says "I don't care to do the dishes" they actually mean they don't mind. However here in California the same phrase would mean that one does not want to do the dishes.

With so much of our life experience being intangible, we have tried to create way to let others know what we are experiencing with words, but even with our best efforts many times we fail.

I have to quote George Carlin here, who is a master of pointing out the problems with words when he asked. "why do shipments go by car and cargo goes by ship?"

Why is it a pair of pants or a pair of panties when they are really one item. And just to add to your post. Why is it that "flamable" and "inflamable" mean the same exact thing?

Sweet post.

Love always,
Elizabeth

Hi Darlene,

We also need to consider that the uses or meanings of words change over time, so if I said that your post was "aweful" is that good or bad?

Connie

P.S. I enjoyed the read and am always interested in the ways words are used, and quite often cringe at some things I hear said. Also, meanings change on some words depending on how they are pronounced.

-C

Why is it you drive on the parkway and park on the driveway?

Hey Connie,

One can stand in awe, but awful is not more of awe.

Hi Darlene--
That heading alone is worth the price of admission.

I have listened to friends who learned English as a second language, and they're good, but they still run up against awkward usage when meanings seem nearly the same, but aren't to a native speaker.

And I know when I'm trying to translate into Spanish sometimes that there's got to be an idiom that is a shortcut, but I don't know what it is.

Hi all,

Again, words. My fetish.

I was rather skeptical regarding Elizabeth's assertion that English is the most complex language so I poked around the net for a bit. Although it's generally acknowledged that English is complex, the "Lingua Complex" trophy should really go to the Native American Ojibwe or Navajo tongues. (The U.S. government even used Navajo to encrypt sensitive data in the Second World War--c.f. the film, Windtalkers, with Nicholas Cage.)

"I am a man but I like dressing in women's clothes," in Navajo:

yeh-hes be-la-sana tsin-tliti be-la-sana na-as-tso-si be-la-sana tsah neh-dih tkin dibeh-yazzie yeh-hes klizzie-yazzie dzeh lha-cha-eh dah-nes-tsa ah-nah dibeh dibeh tkin tsah klizzie a-chi tsah gloe-ih a-kha tsin-tliti ah-nah tsah seis ba-goshi ah-jad tlo-chin a-woh lin ah-jah dibeh da-ahl-zhin

In the Guiness Book of World Records, Ojibwe (Chippewa) is considered the world's most complex language. Often, linguistic complexity has to do with matters of redundancy more than it does with agglutination. An agglutinative language, like German or French or English, is one where words can be "built up" by the addition of particles, as in the following example:

establish
disestablish
disestablishment
antidisestablishment
antidisestablishmentarian
antidisestablishmentarianism

I'm not sure why, exactly, some Native American tongues are considered complex. I'd have to look into it further.

One thing I do find intriguing about my own native French language (and I know that it's something that those who are trying to learn it find endlessly confusing) is the fact that it's gendered. It leads to weird conundrums; for example (don't mean to be crude, here), a vagina is masculine and a testicle is feminine. Go figure.

Anyway, interesting thread, Darlene. Thanks.

Love,
CJ

Yes, the English language can be a difficult and frustrating beast to tame.

Why is the plural of "moose" not "meese", when the plural of "goose" is "geese"? And a "pride" of lions to denote a group of said felines? What's up with that?

Sometimes spelling and pronunciation have little to do with each other, such as the name "Cockburn", which is often pronounced "Coburn". My particular pet peeve (yes, I know I need to get a life!") is the name of that section of metropolitan Toronto which is always referred to as "Etobico", when it is actually spelled "Etobicoke".

And do you realize that a case can be made for pronouncing the made-up word "ghoti" as "fish" i.e. "gh" as in "cough", "o" as in "women", and "ti" as in nation" ? (with apologies to George Bernard Shaw, who was the originator of that particular example.)

Of course, when it comes to superflous letters in words that are never actually spoken out loud, the English language has nothing on the French, not to mention its many tenses - n'est ce pas, C.J.?

I still wake up in a cold sweat at night when I think of the passe simple, which my high school French teachers sprung unexpectedly on an unsuspecting student body just when they thought that they had mastered the passe conditionel and plus parfait, not to mention the subjonctif.

Hi all,

Leslie,

True, French isn't easy, what with silent letters and all. But, as far as tenses go, I remember coming upon this sentence fragment in a high school English course: "having had been had." ... I had nightmares that night!

By the way, "joual" (the Quebec version of spoken French) strikes again; the word "testicle" is, indeed, masculine. My bad. However, a pair is feminine.

I guess, in the end, every language has its own particularities and idiosyncracies. Many sound beautiful, too. Back when I watched television more often, I used to tune in to the local ethnic community channel just to hear people speak a foreign language. It didn't matter which... Polish, Hindi, Greek, Arabic, Spanish, what have you. I just loved the sounds issuing from people's mouths, knowing that what is (reasonably) clear to them is a total mystery to me. It also forced me to focus on their facial expressions and body language just to have a tiny sense of what the conversations could be about. That's a good exercise anytime.

Anyway, sorry for the digression; let's get back to Darlene's thread.

Love,
CJ