The Top Ten: Words that are the opposite of their meaning
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Your support makes all the difference.Tom Chatfield quoted David Foster Wallace, who wrote in an essay collected in 'Both Flesh and Not' of, 'a tiny elite cadre of words that possess the opposite of the qualities they denote', including diminutive, classy, big, colloquialism and pulchritude. Here are 10 more…
1. Monosyllabic
Nominated by Nicci French, Chris Jones and Tom Joyce, who also suggested truncated and abbreviated.
2. Banned
Allowed through by James.
3. Palindrome
Emordnilap got Josh Cowls nowhere.
4. Hyphenated
Joined by Chris Jones and Adam Huntley.
5. Vertical
Nominated by Nicci French, who also thought of twinned.
6. Unpronounceable
Also from James. And many other un- words, such as unwritten (James again), unstated (Nicci French), unreadable (Chairman Moët) and untranslatable (Chris Jones).
7. Korrect
Very droll from Adam Huntley.
8. Germanic
Which is a Romance word. Roger White points out it comes from the Latin germanus "related, of the same parents" hence "related peoples of central and northern Europe".
9. Infinite
10. Misspelled
Spelt out by Chris Jones and Adam Huntley again.
Next week: Worst lines of poetry by an otherwise renowned poet
Coming soon: Unbuilt buildings (we have had great, horrible and fictional ones: now planned ones never finished). Send your suggestions, and ideas for future Top 10s, to top10@independent.co.uk
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