= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
polymathwannabe comments on Open Thread for February 18-24 2014 - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (454)
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")
Slightly off-topic, but the actual complement of red is cyan, and the complement of green is magenta.
I actually acknowledge that deeper in the thread [in the response to PECOS-9], noting that this is the publicly understood complement, despite being wrong: society teaches that the primary colors are Red, Yellow, Blue and not Magenta, Yellow, Cyan.