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An antonym is one of a pair of words with opposite meanings. Each word in the pair is the antithesis of the other. A word may have more than one antonym. There are three categories of antonyms identified by the nature of the relationship between the opposed meanings.
An unpaired word is one that, according to the usual rules of the language, would appear to have a related word but does not. [1] Such words usually have a prefix or suffix that would imply that there is an antonym, with the prefix or suffix being absent or opposite.
Shit happens is a slang sentence that is used as a simple existential observation that life is full of unfortunate unpredictable events, similar to "c'est la vie". The sentence is an acknowledgment that bad things happen to people seemingly for no particular reason.
One might also say that an unlikely event will happen "on the 32nd of the month". To express indefinite postponement, you might say that an event is deferred "to the [Greek] Calends" (see Latin). A less common expression used to point out someone's wishful thinking is Αν η γιαγιά μου είχε καρούλια, θα ήταν ...
The verb stem conveys that "a lending-and-borrowing event is occurring", and the other cues convey who is lending to whom. This makes sense because anytime lending is occurring, borrowing is simultaneously occurring; one cannot happen without the other. The German verb umfahren can mean either "to drive around" or "to run over". The two ...
Oxymorons in the narrow sense are a rhetorical device used deliberately by the speaker and intended to be understood as such by the listener. In a more extended sense, the term "oxymoron" has also been applied to inadvertent or incidental contradictions, as in the case of "dead metaphors" ("barely clothed" or "terribly good").
Synecdoche is a rhetorical trope and a kind of metonymy—a figure of speech using a term to denote one thing to refer to a related thing. [9] [10]Synecdoche (and thus metonymy) is distinct from metaphor, [11] although in the past, it was considered a sub-species of metaphor, intending metaphor as a type of conceptual substitution (as Quintilian does in Institutio oratoria Book VIII).
Kavka's toxin puzzle: Can one intend to drink the non-deadly toxin, if the intention is the only thing needed to get the reward? Motivation crowding theory: Adding incentives for some behavior can sometimes backfire and actually result in less of that behavior.