A Newsworthy English Language Peculiarity

Posted on by equipsblog

Today’s US headlines offer an real time lesson in the peculiarity of the English language.

Former President Donald Trump was indicted for alleged financial fraud, becoming the first current or former US President to be charged.

Many people love Donald Trump. He is loved.

Many people want Donald Trump to be president. He is wanted (as a once and future president.)

Many people do not want Donald Trump to be president again. For these people he is both unwanted (as president for another term) and wanted (because he wanted by the law.)

Can you think of other examples in English where one a word in one tense has a different meaning in another tense?

Published by equipsblog

Writer and oenophile in training

13 thoughts on “A Newsworthy English Language Peculiarity”

  2. Many of us agree with that, although there would be some disagreement on what unique meant– good or bad. 😉🤓🤔. Thanks for commenting, Kaushal. He remains a divisive symbol for Many love him and many despise him.

    Liked by 2 people

  4. Bob was cited for a traffic violation. He protested in court, citing the law that says parking in Sunday is allowed. Citizens who had long been frustrated by the traffic police cited him for a medal because he fought the citation successfully. How confusing can English get?

    Liked by 2 people

  8. A contronym, also known as a ‘Janus word,’ is a word that is its own opposite—like ‘fast’, which can describe both quick movement, and lack of movement.

    He took an axe and cleaved the log in two.
    Husband and wife shall cleave to one another

    Liked by 1 person

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.