“Do you want to do this thing with me?”
“I’m down.”
“I’m up for it.”
You can cut a tree down and then cut that same tree up
Flammable. Inflammable. Famous. Infamous. So many dumb prefixes that make no sense.
There really needs to be more language revisions every couple decades to get rid of stupid shit or revise letters, words, and spellings to be more in tune with their phonetic pronunciations.
They aren’t dumb, peoples’ usage is just poorly informed and incorrect.
Famous/infamous are not synonyms, so you shouldn’t be using them interchangeably. Infamous specifically means “Famous for the wrong [read negative] reasons”. Like a serial killer. Or somebody who is famous for knocking over and breaking a priceless work of art.
If something is flammable, it can be set on fire. Like wood, or paper. If something is inflammable, that’s still true, but it has the additional property of being able to spontaneously combust, without being actively set alight. Like oils, or unstable chemicals, or some explosive material.
These are levels of nuance which are actually really useful, if handled correctly. The fundamental rule appears to be that in an “in…” word, the prefix gives specific detail about how the object holds the properties of the suffix.
Sounds like you just used the guardian’s op ed which is just some random dudes opinion on how they should be used.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/flammable-or-inflammable
I was well aware of the famous infamous thing though.
Regardless, infamous should be ‘not famous’. As in nobody has ever heard of this person. Not famous for evil lmfao.
C / K / S. Remove X. Change letter names to match their sounds.
A / ugh / Ayyy.
B = Buh
C = Removed? It’s just K or S in reality.
D - Dih
E - same?
Etc. etc. there’s better linguists than an old school Grammar Nazi turned Language Darwinist.
I like the idea of removing upper and lower case letters too and changing their denotation with a new symbol, but I’d have to think longer about case studies or could be easily persuaded.
C has some uses other than K/S. The usage in "ch"ess, for instance. We’ll have to shoehorn some other letter here if C is eliminated.
Or we may just reassign “c” to always sound “ch” since it’s freed from other sounds, and save some ink, too 😉
Mmmm yeah that’s that good shit.
It makes a little more sense with the context that “I’m down” is shortened slang for “I’ll throw down on that”, itself slang for “I will get in on this situation” (as in “throwing down” some money or chips when gambling)
I thought it is short for “I am putting myself down for that” or “put me down for that”. As in, putting yourself down on a list for attending an event.
Some day try to explain the meaning of the word cool to a non naive English speaker.
Similar to calling in sick and calling out sick.
We “bang out”, when using a sick day.
“Hey you want some potato chips?”
- “Potato chip sounds good” => Yes please
- “I’m good” => No thanks
Messed me up all the time first time came to the US. Why use positive response for rejection?
Saying no is hard in all languages
To me it usually goes like this:
“No.”
Or sometimes:
“Nope.”
Or when I’m feeling polite:
“No, thanks.”
“I’m good” here means “My situation is good” means “I have what I need already”
‘Hot’ and ‘cool’ can also mean similar things about a person.
You can be cool and hot at the same time.
Ive learned that I can also be neither
Get up, come on get down with the sickness
In the late 80s, bad and good were the same thing!
This is true in 2014-2024 as well
… Tricks are for kids he plays much gigs
He’s the big bad wolf and you’re the three pigs
He’s the big bad wolf in your neighborhood
Not bad meaning bad, but bad meaning good
Run DMC
More recently, the difference between good and bad is in the presence or absence of the word “the” before “shit”.
This is problem with Russian language.
это радио щит!
“I think he likes the radio”
“But we’ll never know!”
Is it just me or are people also using hands up instead of hands down? As in: this is hands down/up the best post I’ve read all day.
As a non English native this always throws me off.
Aussie chiming in: haven’t heard hands up before, might be a US thing
US here, we use “hands down”.
That is hands down the worst children’s play I’ve ever seen.
I think some people are deliberately trying to fuck up intergenerational understanding by teaching weird or opposite versions of phrases and other cultural tokens
Gotta get up to get down.
“I get knocked down! But I get up again! And you’re never gonna keep me down!”
Pissing the night away is also a double entendre, meaning wasting time or literally pissing all night from drinking.
On the other hand, “knocked down” and “knocked up” have drastically different meanings, which is a little confusing for foreigners sometimes. =P
The first time somebody told me he was down I had to pause and wonder what he meant. Did he mean he was sad? Did he mean he didn’t want to do the thing?
In my friend circle we will invite each other to stuff and ask “are you up or down?” Then schedule them regardless of response.
