Saturday, September 10, 2011

Opposites Attract?

We all know about how "flammable" and "inflammable" mean the same thing, as that's generally taught from an early age because of its counterintuitivity (if you'll pardon my fabricated word).

However, there is a pair of phrases that troubles me far beyond the ability of the aforementioned contradiction.  Look in any self respecting thesaurus, and you will find that the opposite of "up" is "down" and vice versa.  Why then, I ask you, can one describe something that is a little further away on a particular course as being both "up the road" and "down the road?"  That bothers me.  If one means that it's ahead of you, the other should mean that the destination is behind you!

Aren't you all so glad that my sparks of lunacy are now available for you to experience?

-FSG

4 comments:

  1. See you fail to understand that they ARE different directions. "Up the street" is towards the main road, closer. "Down the street" is further down the road, away from stuff. Opposite directions much like port and starboard.

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  2. What if you're on the main road?

    -FSG

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  3. Then its north vs south. Duh. :)

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  4. You know, some roads go East/West...

    -FSG

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