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ChristianKl comments on Open Thread for February 18-24 2014 - Less Wrong
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Is anyone else bothered by the word "opposite"?
It has many different usages, but there are two in particular that bother me: "The opposite of hot is cold" "The opposite of red is green" Opposite of A is [something that appears to be on the other side of a spectrum from A]
"The opposite of hot is not-hot" "The opposite of red is not-red"
Opposite of A is ~A
These two usages really ought not to be assigned to the same word. Does anyone know if there are simple ways to unambiguously use one meaning and not the other that already exist in English?
(Basically, are there two words/phrases foo and bar so that one could say "The foo of hot is cold, but the bar of hot is not-hot")
The antonym of hot is cold.
The negation of hot is not-hot.
That is a very good suggestion.
While better than anything I came up with on my own, I'm not sure that antonym is a perfect fit though.
For one, while hot/cold works, I'm not sure that red/green works.
Plus, antonym has a different connotation - it is the antonym of synonym. Antonym implies a word with the "opposite" meaning, not a concept with the "opposite" meaning.
I wouldn't be comfortable talking about the antonym of a concept.
Does anyone know if there are any languages that don't have this problem?