Off My Chest
RULES:
I am looking for mods!
1. The "good" part of our community means we are pro-empathy and anti-harassment. However, we don't intend to make this a "safe space" where everyone has to be a saint. Sh*t happens, and life is messy. That's why we get things off our chests.
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See the problem with that is that I believe the 3rd meaning there comes from the common misuse of the word. Otherwise the connotation behind the word loses all meaning. It would be indiscernible in what way you anticipating an event if the word means something you dread and something you eagerly wait using the exact same phrase. "I'm anxious for dad to get home", for example, should have the connotation that they are expecting trouble when their dad gets home, while "I'm eager for dad to get home" tells you that something good will come with dad's arrival. But that third definition means "anxious" gives both connotations, or rather neither. If anxious is both an antonym and a synonym to "eager", it's a linguistically meaningless word. Why bother saying it at all if you also have to explain it or give additional context to understand which polar opposite meaning you intended?
So to your first concern, the link address it:
How long does a term have to be commonly missed before it is just a common use?
As for your second concern, language isn't separate from context. The use comes first in context and then we derive definitions. ๐๐จ๐พโ๐๐ซ๐ฉ๐พโ๐
Again, not saying it's not common use. It clearly is. But it robs the word of any meaning on its own and makes so that it has to be propped up by context to have any meaning at all. It's not like a word taking on an entirely new definition unrelated to its previous use or it's previous definitions being replaced by new ones. It's newer definition is the exact opposite of its original and yet both definitions are commonly used in the exact same phrasing. Like I said, it's a pet peeve. This newer common use definition makes the word mean nothing at all to the listener. I think anxious and eager are two separate words that should serve two separate purposes in language and making anxious mean both is dumb.
I think you misunderstand how meaning is created. Meaning is always contextual, not prescriptive definitions.
Is that why the dictionary defines every word with "it depends", "hard to say", and "I don't know, man. You figure it out!"?
Derisive sarcasm isn't useful here.
Definitions are still a useful tool and help clarify the semantic field. Dictionaries are a project that imply that meaning is dependent and contextual. Dictionaries attempt to capture it, for now. A word's meaning depends upon its part of speech and can mean different things when present in different parts of speech i.e., row. Homonyms, of which contranyms like anxious and cleave are a subset of, can even exist in the same part of speech. "A bat flew past me" is a meaningful statement, but we have deferred it's meaning until context reveals what type of bat. It could literally be either.
Etymologies can help understand how this happens. Or their transformation can be lost. Languages change. The word "ephemera" has nothing to do with fevers. Original meaning is not the supreme meaning. Connection to the original does not confer primacy. "Cleave" means to "stay close to" and "split apart". When you look at how the same word from two different non-English sources enter English at two different times, you see how a contranym can emerge.
The meaning of a word is open to change from social circumstances. Just because it used to mean something like a one day fever doesn't mean it still means that nor does it mean that it's connection is either obvious, tracable, or necessary.
A fixed meaning has to be divorced from people and it's use. Language is a reflection of the people who use it. Meaning has several points of instability. Only context can fasten it. Context is the only way meaning is reveal despite our anxious anticipation for its stability. We are ahead of the meaning when we prematurely seek it's stability, clarity, and certainty. And when contranyms allow for double meaning, it can be an invitation to play. And is anything more human than that?