Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 July 7

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July 7

I lost them: idiom with opposite meanings

In a book I'm reading a chapter starts with "Saturnino lost them in the early streets of the Bosques de las Lomas district ...".

For context, this part is set in Mexico City, and Saturnino is in his car, following Haydon et al in their car. But it's strangely written, with an abundance of narrative detail that sometimes causes me to lose my way, put the book aside, and come back to it and try to pick up the thread. Haydon is also following other cars, including Saturnino's, at various times. So, when I opened this chapter I was a little unsure of who was following whom. I initially read it as Saturnino successfully outrunning the others and escaping. But as I read on it became clear that Saturnino was doing the following, and Haydon's car was the one that got away (although they weren't aware they were being followed at this point).

What's it called when a sentence or phrase can have two diametrically opposing meanings depending on context? In this scenario both the follower and the followee could have used the "I lost them" idiom and the listener would not have had any trouble understanding. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:10, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

It is a special case of Syntactic ambiguity. I don't know if there is a word for it. "Ibis redibis nunquam per bella peribis" is another example. Auto-antonym is somewhat related. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 00:35, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

I seem to remember (years ago probably) you asked the same question about suspicious, as in "a suspicious man".  Card Zero  (talk) 00:43, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Excellent. Thanks. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:43, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Resolved

Jack asks suspiciously often. 2008, 2011, 2012. DuncanHill (talk) 01:12, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

As I said in 2012: "My memory really needs some new RAM. But at least I'm consistent in my thinking." Nothing has changed. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:22, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

I once wrote a code module (a piecewise polynomial object in Python) and later found I had written it almost exactly the same way years before. —Tamfang (talk) 15:18, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

The other obvious conclusion is that I'm a goddamned troll, but one who operates so insidiously that it takes special powers of observation and long-term memory to sniff me out (if I may mingle my senses outrageously). I confess. I'll go quietly. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:46, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Both meanings of lose are given by Wiktionary:

4. (transitive) To be unable to follow or trace (somebody or something) any longer.

5. (transitive) To cause (somebody) to be unable to follow or trace one any longer.

This is an instance of using a usually non-causative verb in a causative sense. This is in fact fairly common in English; for example, when information leaks to the press it is often because someone leaks it. For more examples; see Causative alternation for examples. What is unusual in this case is that the verb is transitive in both senses, so that the roles of subject and object are swapped. I think this is not a syntactic but a semantic ambiguity, for which oracles are also known. (The oracles of Delphi and Thebes, 560 BC, "If you attack Persia, you will destroy a mighty empire.")  --Lambiam 12:44, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Lovely. Thank you. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:58, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

I think you're right and the ambiguity is semantic, not syntactic as I originally thought. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 18:07, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Maybe you were a victim of terminological ambiguity. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:42, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I have trouble with lease; either to pay for the use of something or to receive payment. Doug butler (talk) 23:53, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Same ambiguity with rent.  --Lambiam 09:59, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Narratives that start in medias res often have pronouns with no immediately obvious referents, forcing the reader to track down who or what is being discussed by reading on further. I feel like there's a Larry Niven story tapping at me from somewhere in my brain that uses this technique, but which one it is has yet to come into focus. I would be curious whether there's a name for this technique. --Trovatore (talk) 18:53, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

That would be a case of referential ambiguity. Using ambiguity for comedic effect can be a form of misdirection. A famous example using ambiguity (not referential ambiguity in this case) for misdirection is a famous joke by Groucho Marx: "One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I'll never know."[1] I don't know whether there is a more specific term for it. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 19:08, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I wonder if the line I'm thinking of is

I left him in Damascus, the year before Tamerlane sacked it.

Except that's not Niven, but another author I admire for similar reasons, and it's not the first line of the story, but the last. It would be a great first line for a story, only not that particular story, as it would ruin the story's central twist. --Trovatore (talk) 19:17, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

If the ambiguity is used to mislead or to lead up to a plot twist I would classify it as misdirection. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 19:33, 10 July 2023 (UTC)