On the Contrary

Have you ever, as I have, stood in the kitchen reading a recipe that calls for  “unpeeled potatoes”? What the heck do they want you to do—peel them, or not? I have no idea!

 Or, ever wondered why the same word means adding fine particles, and removing them (“dust”)?

How about working “out of the office” (as many of us have done in the last two years)? Does that mean you are based IN the office, or not?

These and quite a few other words/phrases in our ever-delightful English language are called “contronyms”: they actually mean two contradictory things. Most of the time you can puzzle them out in the context of the sentence (note: “puzzle” refers to both a problem, and solving a problem.) But other times you “wind up” (meaning “end”, as well as “start up”) totally confused. As a wordsmith, I am confronted with these grammar choices frequently, and tend to avoid their use, in the interest of being a “transparent” writer (obvious, not invisible). Nevertheless, I am “bound” (held fast? Heading somewhere?) to goof up, to “refrain” (do again, as in music) instead of “refrain” (stop doing). 

Yikes.

No wonder I don’t make a decent effort to learn other languages! I can scarcely handle my own!!

BEING contrary, of course, means automatically doing or saying the opposite of what is requested or expected. That would have been young me, endlessly arguing my points with my grownups, taking a totally different stance on pretty much anything. I think I would have made a great debater, except for the fact that someone once suggested it to me, which made it a permanent no. My Nana Cunningham and her sister, my great-aunt Rose, were both schoolteachers, and harped on my doing likewise. I heard the word “pension” constantly throughout my childhood, which not surprisingly lent zero extra appeal to that career choice. How fortunate that I went my own way, spending decades of my prime earning years in touring children’s theatre, with nary a penny in the bank to show for it at the end! So there, Nana and Rose!!

We’re living in a very contrarian time, when our politics, our climate understanding and our health care decisions so often boil down to: THEY are Pro, therefore I am automatically Con. And while it’s good to question things, it’s ridiculous when you act against your own best interests, just because.

I’d love to see us as a society move beyond these knee-jerk reactions. Why, had I listened to my elders, I could have been a wealthy retired pensioner now, instead of an aging woman with a trunk of old costumes as her investment portfolio!

So let’s leave contronyms where they belong (in the thesaurus), and work on being a little more conciliatory and agreeable! On our “trip” through life (journey? Stumble?) things will go much more smoothly if we stop being so “unbending” (rigid, not relaxed, though it means both).

Glad I could clear things up.