Re: Tr: Re: boustrophedon (was: Atlantis II)

Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> I agree with you, and I think that why common terms usually have unrelated
> contraries with about the same size (cf. big vs. small, thin vs. thick, French
> grand/petit, etc...). For less common terms, the fact that they are used less
> often makes the loss of equality less important (also, they are usually longer
> words, so one syllable more is usually not that much :) ).
Plus, which item is to be taken as basic?  Is it "big" and "unbig" or
"unsmall" and "small"?  :-)

That's one thing I like about 1984's Newspeak.  "Doubleplusungood" is
just so much fun to say.  :-)  And, if you believe in Sapir-Whorf, it
would tend to encourage a sort of polarized worldview.

But, in my languages, I prefer to have unrelated words for opposites.
Like, how would you say "Well, she's not *pretty*, but she's not *ugly*
either", if you simply used negations?

--
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A nation without a language is a nation without a heart - Welsh proverb
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