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Negative words such as bad [9] and sick sometimes acquire ironic senses by antiphrasis [10] referring to traits that are impressive and admired, if not necessarily positive (that outfit is bad as hell; lyrics full of sick burns). Some contronyms result from differences in varieties of English.
A aggravate – Some have argued that this word should not be used in the sense of "to annoy" or "to oppress", but only to mean "to make worse". According to AHDI, the use of "aggravate" as "annoy" occurs in English as far back as the 17th century. In Latin, from which the word was borrowed, both meanings were used. Sixty-eight percent of AHD4's usage panel approves of its use in "It's the ...
The large ball crashed right through the table because it was made of Styrofoam: ambiguous use of a pronoun: The word "it" refers to the table being made of Styrofoam; but "it" would immediately refer to the large ball if we replaced "Styrofoam" with "steel" without any other change in its syntactic parse. [27]
any inland stream of water smaller than a river (other terms: UK: rill, gill; N. Eng. & Scot.: burn; Eng. & New Eng.: brook; Midland US: run) crew body of people manning a vehicle of any kind gang of manual workers (e.g. road crew) group of friends or colleagues ("I saw him and his crew at the bar") rowing as a sport crib (n.)
See List of English words with disputed usage for words that are used in ways that are deprecated by some usage writers but are condoned by some dictionaries. There may be regional variations in grammar , orthography , and word-use , especially between different English-speaking countries.
Words with specific British English meanings that have different meanings in American and/or additional meanings common to both languages (e.g. pants, cot) are to be found at List of words having different meanings in American and British English. When such words are herein used or referenced, they are marked with the flag [DM] (different meaning).
A mondegreen (/ ˈ m ɒ n d ɪ ˌ ɡ r iː n / ⓘ) is a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning. [1] Mondegreens are most often created by a person listening to a poem or a song; the listener, being unable to hear a lyric clearly, substitutes words that sound similar and make some kind of sense.
[citation needed] For example, consider the following English sentences: "I know you're coming." "I know that you're coming." In this construction, the conjunction that is optional when joining a sentence to a verb phrase with know. Both sentences are grammatically correct, but the word that is pleonastic in this case.