13 Responses to “DOEP – Daily Open-Ended Puzzle (one time only): Opposites”

1. Bryan Campbell, on September 13th, 2006 at 3:39 pm Said:

   You can calm down but not calm up.
   Throwing down is not the opposite of throwing up.
   You can fill something up but not fill it down.

2. Matt Norwood, on September 13th, 2006 at 4:18 pm Said:

   Bringing someone up is not the opposite of bringing someone down.

   Strangely, however, living it up often does result in having to live something down.

3. Andrius Kulikauskas, on September 13th, 2006 at 6:50 pm Said:

   My favorite is “loosen” and “unloosen” as they mean just about the same thing!

4. SamW, on September 13th, 2006 at 6:52 pm Said:

   Blowing up a house is not opposite to blowing it down. Its quite similar, in fact. Same with burn up and burn down.

5. Mark Federman, on September 13th, 2006 at 7:11 pm Said:

   Not exactly on theme, but my mother-in-law would always “unthaw” frozen food that came out of the freezer. She never could quite understand that, technically speaking, you put food into the freezer to unthaw it.

6. Linda, on September 14th, 2006 at 9:26 am Said:

   Slow up and slow down are not opposites.

   To dress down someone is not the opposite of to dress up someone.

   I wish I could think of more.

7. Michael Saunders, on September 14th, 2006 at 10:02 am Said:

   “…two words with opposite meanings are called antonyms. So autoantonyms are words that are the opposite of themselves!”

   For example:

   custom == usual; normal
   custom == special; unique

   see
   http://www.fun-with-words.com/nym_autoantonyms.html

8. Linda, on September 14th, 2006 at 9:43 pm Said:

   Bryan – your calm up and calm down made me think of chill out and chill in. :). Ha, it could be similar if one was chill out and the other was chillin’. ;)

9. Charlie Green, on September 15th, 2006 at 12:15 pm Said:

   This whole thing sounds like a George Carlin routine . . ..

10. Seth Gordon, on September 15th, 2006 at 2:02 pm Said:

    To cleave something is to split it apart. To cleave to something is to stick to it.

11. Dan, on September 20th, 2006 at 9:47 am Said:

    getting on with somebody isn’t opposite to getting off with them.

    Turning up and turning down

12. tracy, on December 15th, 2006 at 10:27 am Said:

    fill in doesn’t always mean opposite of fill out- although fill in the blank is similar in meaning to fill out this form – but if you fill in for someone you can’t fill out for a person – also, speak up not opposite of speak down
    and just want to share this- nobody’s left can mean no one has left (which means everyone’s still there) or nobody’s left means nobody is left (everyone’s gone)

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