There's A Word For That-a Logovoracious coinage
Wednesday, June 22, 2011 at 10:01AM There are several words in English which, screwily, mean their own opposite. In Elizabethan times, "doubt" could mean to question or to have no question. Nowadays, we have words like "sanction", which can permit or punish, and "oversight", which can mean to observe or to ignore. One must determine which meaning is intended from context. It's all very confusing and, as far as I have been able to determine there is no term of linguistic art for these things. Oxymoron comes close, but it means something more like self-contradictory, which these are not.
I have decided to try to fill this void in our language by coining a new term. I considered "autoantonym", which would accurately describe the phenomenon, but I find the double prefix (auto-ant) infelicitous and possibly confusing. After much cogitation, I came up with, and now propose "isomoron". Its similarity to the aforementioned oxymoron will serve as a clue to its meaning, and I like the way it sounds. I am aware that the etymology is shaky (iso- means same,-moron foolish) but it's close enough. I believe that with use its meaning will become clear to all.
So I invite to to use my spanking new word whenever the occasion arises. Tell your friends and neighbors about it. And remember--you heard it first on The Logovore's Dilemma. (BTW-I talked about this on the show on 6/20/11, which can be found in the Vault for the next couple of weeks). And just for the record
Isomoron (I-so-MOR-on) N. A word which means its own opposite.
Tom J.
Well, it turns out there IS a word for that; one which I've never heard before, and which I'm embarrassed did not occur to me when I was working on this. The word is "contranym" which expresses the idea I was trying to get to with more clearly than my attempted coinage "isomoron". Thanks to the folks at Wordsmith.com, a very useful and enjoyable site for things linguistic, for calling this to my attention. Back to the drawing board.
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