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"Terrific" used to be a synonym for "terrible", and "awesome" for "awful". Even the word "bad" has a slang meaning of "good". In Japanese 適当 is supposed to mea
by Grue3 7y ago
"Terrific" used to be a synonym for "terrible", and "awesome" for "awful". Even the word "bad" has a slang meaning of "good".
In Japanese 適当 is supposed to mean "appropriate, proper", but in practice it almost always means "unserious, sloppy, careless". Not sure how that came about.
- smudgymcscmudge 7y agoTerrific is my favorite autoantonym, but at this point the “terror causing” definition is little more than entomology trivia.
- Lxr 7y agoSimilar to 厉害 in Chinese - it often translates as terrible, but mostly used to mean great.
- gwd 7y ago"Awesome" and "Aweful" have similar etymologoies: both mean, "Inspiring or creating awe". But one has morphed into, "really good", and the other into "really bad".
- thaumasiotes 7y agoLikewise "terrible" and "terrific".
- thaumasiotes 7y agoI believe "terrible" in the sense given for 厉害 is as in "I am Oz, the great and terrible", not the ordinary sense of the word.
- dwohnitmok 7y agoThis. It can be used more colloquially than the equivalent meaning of "terrible," where it's closer to something like "awesome." It can also generally used as a marker of intensity. In no case does it mean "bad at something."
- UIZealot 7y agoCan you give an example where it means terrible? I can't think of any.
- m12k 7y agoNow I wonder if there's a general term for words that ought to be antonyms but are actually synonyms. An example would be flammable and inflammable.
- limomium 7y agoThat's just terrorific!
- cardiffspaceman 7y agoA passage in the "Vogue book of manners" from the '30's insisted that one never, ever say that a woman's dress was terrific, with literally no explanation.
- raldi 7y agoI used to work on a San Francisco team with a Zurich counterpart, mostly staffed with people of Italian descent. There was a quite confusing situation once involving a misunderstanding of my use of "terrific"; they thought I was calling something horrifyingly bad. Another such situation went something like this: Me: "I tried what you suggested and now everything's hunky-dory." Them, 12 hours later: "Well if you're going to complain about my suggestion, I wish you'd have at least explained what was wrong with it.