«
»

Tricky twins 1

Be careful. Some English words and phrases can mean the exact opposite of themselves!

anxious

  1. worried, nervous, full of dread for — I’m so anxious about the economy!
  2. eager, looking forward, full of excitement for — I’m so anxious for spring!

down with

  1. get rid of, reject — Down with the king!
  2. (slang) accepting of, in agreement with — Wanna go see a movie? I’m down with that.

liege

  1. a superior or lord — Look, my liege, Camelot!
  2. a vassal or loyal subject sworn to the service of a lord — You are all the king’s lieges.

stakeholder

  1. a person or organization with a vested interest in an issue or business
  2. a neutral person who holds the wagers in a contest and has no interest in the property held

table

  1. (British, Canadian and Australian) to submit for discussion, propose, suggest
  2. (American) to cancel discussion of, postpone, shelve

terrific

  1. excellent, superb
  2. terrifying, causing terror
Liked this post? These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook

This entry was posted on May 19, 2009. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Tricky twins 1”

  1. You know so many interesting infomation. You might be very wise. I like such people. Don’t top writing.

  2. maybe I am not right (my native language is Russian and my English is not very good), but I think the first place in this list must belong to that confusing word ‘quite’

  3. I love reading things like this even though my English is really good (or so I like to think). All the funny spellings, and even the fact that one word can have almost two opposite meanings, that stuff just makes me glad English is my first language.
    Thank-you! :]

  4. @ va1en0k : The only use of the word “quite” that I’ve seen in English is as a synonym of “very”, how is it confusing?

Leave a Reply