Adam Aaronson (a software engineer who also plays jazz trombone and electric bass) has a blog post with all sorts of Hattic material; it starts with an observation made by Alex Boisvert on Crosscord, the crossword Discord server:
JET BLACK and JETBLUE have very different meanings, even though they look superficially similar. Same thing with CATNAP and DOGNAP. Any other examples of this?
Adam continues:
Suffice to say, the Crosscord hivemind had other examples of this. Will Nediger replied a few minutes later with the clever MULTITOOL and MULTIPLIERS (words with completely unrelated meanings, despite the fact that PLIERS are a TOOL). Several messages later, Alex chimed back in with the elegant PUB QUIZ and BAR EXAM, a pairing that had been used in some form in crosswords by constructors Christopher Adams (2018) and Robyn Weintraub (2021).
Something about this concept—two sets of synonyms (PUB and BAR, QUIZ and EXAM), which when paired together, form phrases that themselves are not synonyms (PUB QUIZ and BAR EXAM)—captured the minds of Crosscord. Suddenly, the floodgates were open.
People suggested UBEREATS / SUPERFOOD, THROW SHADE / PITCH BLACK, BOOTY CALL / BUTT DIAL, ROMAN MARS / CLASSICAL RUINS, PERMANENT PRESS / FOREVER STAMP, and others.
There’s something going on here. Something more than a shitpost or an ephemeral trend. Double doubles have the proverbial juice, and the juice lies in their structure. Each pair of pairs can be modeled as a square, where the corners are words and the sides are relations between those words […]
It’s this square structure that makes each double double feel tight, feel satisfying, feel like a real “find”. This is the essence of what I’ve started calling square theory, and it applies to much more than just posts in a Discord server.
Click through for much more, including crossword examples (e.g., Will Shortz’s all-time favorite clue, [It turns into a different story] for SPIRAL STAIRCASE). Via MeFi.
CHAINMAIL vs SNAIL MAIL
worsted sock -> beat beat
Parting is such good grief.
Aaronson has found a new use for commutative diagrams – from category theory, as he explains in the post.
Compare divergent meanings for the same two-word item, of this sort:
Toilet roll used to mean something that contained toiletry necessities. OED gives citations from 1877 to 1904, but here is one from 2014 in a WW2 historical novel: “The toilet roll contained towels, comb, a can of tooth powder, toothbrush, shaving brush, razor, and five double-edge blades.”
A fire drill was a tool for making fire using friction long before it was an emergency-readiness measure.
Bum bags were first baggy trousers, then fanny packs.
Others?
In Victoria (Australia) there was a senior police honcho called Superintendent Glare, whose name always made me think of the fierce regard he might deploy against any hapless suspect or underling. Compare Cardinal Sin, of course, from the Philippines.
Others?
Initialisms so often it’s rarely unexpected. Apocryphal story of Bono berating American sporting slogan “Jesus is my IRA”.
Coincidentally, I was led to this site recently:
https://rickiheicklen.com/unparalleled-misalignments.html
It says:
This is a list of Unparalleled Misalignments, pairs of non-synonymous phrases where the words in one phrase are each synonyms of the words in the other.
Among the hundreds listed:
Smarty pants // Intelligence briefs
Grass fed // Field agent
Knuckle sandwich // Bone meal
Comedy club // Snickers bar
Mass extinction // Weight loss
Wave function // Beach party
Mass extinction // weight loss
This sounds like a new religious cult led by a former dietician, those who are unable to reduce their weight sufficiently are made to drink the Koolaid and argue their case for salvation with their Maker.
butt call has more going on, being a false friend of Hebrew’s בת קול, i.e. Voice of God.
I naturally assumed from the title that this post was about the scientific study of people who are not hip and happening, but I’ll take this. Daddy-O.
There must surely be lots of linguistics-related ones.
Conversation piece/sentence fragment.
Free state/open condition.
Air circulation/tone spreading.
Spectrograph / ghostwriter.
Hillwalking/downstep.
Granny flat/dependent compound.
Sexual arrangement/gender system.
Arctic research/polar question.
Inevitable death/imperative termination.
I saw once somewhere polygon = dead parrot.
(Not exactly the same though, since “dead parrot” isn’t a stock phrase.)
“Now be a good parrot or you won’t get your Polyfilla.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spackling_paste#Polyfilla
The “polygon = dead parrot” type is a daffynition aka Uxbridge English Dictionary
Slide ruler / Ice queen
Monospace / Single room
Henchman/ Arch bishop
Square theory / Market system
Aristocratic manners / Highway
This reminds me of a long-time cryptic crossword maker, IIRC Jelmer Steenhuis (old interview probably behind a newspaper paywall), who once described his one-letter classification for the structure of cryptic clue vs answer.
With a one- or two-part clue and a one- or two-part answer, the possibilities are:
I (1-to-1),
V (two clues merging in the answer),
A (one clue with two possible meanings joined up in the answer),
H (same as Square Theory),
X (same as Square Theory but in reverse order).
(The letters represent miniature vertical flow charts.)
Unionized site / Neutral territory
For a more triangleish example than jet black vs. jet blue, consider [this is quoted from memory] “the vast gulf between the meanings of horseplay and ponyplay”.
Most of the proposed options turn on nonobvious alternate meanings of some of the included components; I like “booty call/butt dial”, and to a lesser extent “pub quiz/bar exam”, for not doing that and actually kinda looking like they should mean the sameish thing but somehow happen not to.
(The next example on the misalignments list, “manual labor/hand job”, also has this feature. The one after that is less obviously fitting but has no clear mismatches and is striking for being a triple: “blanket statement / pillow talk / cover story”.)
Not really quite the same thing, but there’s the infamous comparison of “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned” and “Sorry, Daddy, I’ve been naughty”.
Wine, women, and song / Sex & drugs & rock & roll
More of a pragmatic difference.
@Y: that’s just the same underlying point from the Philosophia Perennis calqued into two different registers of English. I’m not sure if “pragmatic” is the right adjective for describing the difference.
By the time Ian Dury wrote S&D&R&R, WW&S would come off (I think) as a genteel motto of old-fashioned and moderate pleasure. I mean, there had been a Johann Strauss waltz called Wein, Weib und Gesang for a hundred years by then. S&D&R&R was in-your-face and free of euphemism.
I’d say register refers to who uses language and when. Pragmatics is what sentiment the language conveys. In this case it’s both.
I feel like there were probably some individuals in pre-Dury generational cohorts whose intake of WW&S was less restrained and genteel than what you might infer from a Strauss waltz but who would have still used WW&S as a descriptor because that was the conventional phrase.
“Wine, women and song*” sounds just as debauched as “sex and drugs and rock and roll” to me, but then, I am a dour Calvinist.
*The only truly acceptable style of song is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelic_psalm_singing
The decline of the Church is directly traceable to the Popish/heathenish practice of hymn-singing. Inevitably, this corrupts the mind and leads to fornication and Arminianism.
For anyone who has 32 minutes to watch a documentary about how the Hebridean singing style referenced by David E. played out in the New World (among three different religious subcultures, with different geographical and racial and sometimes linguistic details), I encourage you to click on https://vimeo.com/82304757.
… hymn-singing. Inevitably, this corrupts the mind and leads to fornication and Arminianism.
#
the Remonstrants were the first Christian church in the world to bless same-sex relationships similar to other relations.[14]
#
A little him-singing never hurt. Anyway fornication is a hetero hang-up. I never really saw the appeal, and thus saw no threat from it.
Reminds me of my favorite Twitter joke that garbage men and pick-up artists should switch meanings
Ha!
“You have a sensitive soul — your foot smells.”
For a more triangleish example
An even more triangley example is the distinction between worthless and priceless.
What is a psalm but a hymn that’s old enough to be in the Bible?
The whole point! We want none of this modern eighteenth-century stuff!
…huh. German ones routinely come from the sixteenth century.
Well, you’ve got Luther, innit.
There actually is (or perhaps was) an old Presbyterian tradition that any hymns not actually to be found in the Bible (i.e. not from the book of Psalms) are Bad.
And, it’s dawning on me, probably a whole bunch of reactions to him, probably as part of the beginning counterreformation. (Catholic experience here – of songs by Luther, I only know Vom Himmel hoch, da komm’ ich her).
That said, here’s one from 1768/1776 that started out on the Catholic side, then became strongly associated with Lutheranism, but is still sung in Catholic Easter masses. …and I see it’s got two English versions.
There actually is (or perhaps was) an old Presbyterian tradition that any hymns not actually to be found in the Bible (i.e. not from the book of Psalms) are Bad.
Is, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_psalmody (naturally).
(Catholic experience here – of songs by Luther, I only know Vom Himmel hoch, da komm’ ich her).
Odd Jewish experience: The only one I know is “A Mighty Fortress” (Ein feste Burg).
I refuse to believe DM doesn’t know that one.
That’s also the only one of Luther’s hymns I know, but I can never remember which tune is Luther’s and which is Bach’s.
https://www.geist-und-leben.de/archiv-gul/systematisches-archiv/gul-82-2009/heft-2-m%C3%A4rz-april-2/657-abhandlungen-burkhard-neumann-%E2%80%9Eein-feste-burg-ist-unser-gott%E2%80%9C-ein-katholischer-blick-auf-luthers-lied-122%E2%80%93136/file
—
Das Lied „Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott“ ist nicht nur das bekannteste Lied Luthers, sondern wohl auch eines der am meisten missverstandenen (und leider auch missbrauchten) evangelischen Kirchenlieder überhaupt. Es ist fast schon „eine Art Nationalhymne des deutschen Protestantismus“ geworden, ein Lied also, das Selbstverständnis und Selbstbewusstsein evangelischer Kirche zum Ausdruck zu bringen scheint. Es ist von daher verständlich, dass es katholischen Christen kaum vertraut ist und auch nicht zum gemeinsamen ökumenischen Liedbestand gehört.
—
To paraphrase, because of its sectarian propaganda use, the song is not generally familiar [kaum vertraut] to Catholics and is also not an ecumenic song.
So, David would not hear it in church. I suppose Lutherans and evangelicals are not a sufficiently sizable and vociferous minority in Austria to parade around the streets singing, as they intend to do today in Northern Ireland, where they will stew in their own juices and their traditionally weather-resistant clothing in the 25° C temperatures (this is just another trial for God’s Chosen).
Only its name; it’s never sung in remotely Catholic contexts, and I don’t know either tune. I don’t think I’ve heard Vom Himmel hoch in church, but it’s a widespread Christmas carol – I know the first stanza by heart, lyrics and tune.
Correct, though nobody else does that either.
Edit: football fans, duh. But they can’t keep a tune 🙂
any hymns not actually to be found in the Bible (i.e. not from the book of Psalms) are Bad.
Ah, than I know a hymn too! ana la habibi
Russian гимн gimn means both a state anthem and religious hymn. But: state anthems is what you hear all the time while titles of religious hyms is what you find.. hm. Here:) Which makes these ‘devotional anthems’ (this is how you understand ‘hymn’) a funny exotic concept.
(weirdly Google tells me: ”a гимн is…” and then gives the definition of English ”hymn”. In Russian. It seems not to know that foreign languages like Russian ever do anything but reflecting English. )
English is very much the outlier here.
Oti-Volta languages have no specific words for “religious praise song”, as opposed to “song” generally; unsurprisingly, as such things are not part of the traditional culture.
Kusaal does have a specific verb baam “sing a praise song in expectation of rewards”, though. Seems to be reconstructable to proto-Oti-Volta, even (cf Mooré báamè, Gulimancema bààndì.)