In
this episode
of the John Cleese podcast, he takes on a pet peeve of mine, and
explains with graphs and charts exactly why it’s wrong to say “I could
care less”.
Oh, and for those who didn’t know that John Cleese has a podcast:
John Cleese has a
podcast.
I’ve often been struck by how much French humor relies on puns and wordplay. I suspect that this has to do with how easy it is to make puns in French vs. English. For instance, every time I pass the canned foods aisle at the grocery store, I think of how “ravioli” in French is a near-homonym for “delighted in bed”. And I just ran across the song “Aux sombres héros de l’amer”, meaning “To the dark heroes of bitterness”; but as TehPedia points out, this can also be heard as “O Sombrero of the Sea”.
I just ran across this comment:
First Amendment notwithstanding, there are such things under the law as harmful speech that can be sanctioned.
“Sanction” has two meanings, which are opposites of each other: it can mean either “official permission” or “penalty” (or, as a verb, either “to give official permission” or “to impose a penalty”). In this case, since the topic is the first amendment, which permits people to say things that have historically been banned, it’s even more confusing.
David at Mental Floss calls such words “contronyms” or “antagonyms”. Take your pick.