A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg 

Contranyms (words with contradictory meanings)

secrete  (si-KREET) verb tr.
1.  To discharge or release.
2.  To conceal; to keep secret.
peruse  (puh-ROOZ)  verb tr.
1.  To read or examine with great care.
2.  To read or examine in a casual manner.
second-guess  (SEK-uhnd GES)  verb tr.
1.  To criticize an event with the benefit of hindsight.
2.  To guess or predict.
discursive  (dis-KUHR-siv)  adjective 
1.  Jumping from topic to topic; rambling.
2.  Proceeding logically, using reason or argument rather than emotion.

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In French, the word hôte can mean either host or guest.  The Greek language presents a similar dual meaning in the word xénos, which can mean foreigner or stranger as well as guest-friend.  The Greek gods frequently traveled in human guise on earth, and it was Zeus's expectation that strangers be greeted hospitably.  Going about disguised as a mortal was one way of conducting clandestine inspection tours, an ancient version of the mystery shopper.  Another contranym is "scan" which contains meanings (amongst others) "scrutinise" and "glance over"

Profile of Anu Garg  He sends out a simple email every day, A.Word.A.Day, containing a word, its definition and etymology, and an example of its current contextual usage; this to more than a quarter million subscribers in about 170 countries.  And he has been doing it since 1994.  The New York Times calls his mails “arguably the most welcomed, most enduring piece of daily mass e-mail in cyberspace.”  The Wall Street Journal compares him to Tom Sawyer, who has managed to alter others’ views about fence painting, and points to the numbers who happily join painting his wall with words.  Add the fact that this is an immigrant whose first language is not English, a man who has had no “English connection” till high school.  Anu Garg is a man with a mission.

Read entire article at:  http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/word-hungry/article4533467.ece

There are two forms of contranyms:  homographic, where two words with the same spelling can have opposing definitions; and homophonic, where two words with the same pronunciation can have opposing definitions.  In general, the terms below are both homographic and homophonic contranyms.  Richard Lederer included a list of self-contradicting words in a chapter on Janus-faced words in his book Crazy English.  T-Rex in the November 2nd, 2007 edition of Dinosaur Comics describes this class of words as homographic homophonic autantonyms.  See list of contranyms at:  http://www.translationdirectory.com/glossaries/glossary107.htm

 

Ricky Smith works at a library full of magic secrets:  The Conjuring Arts Research Center, located a few blocks from the Empire State Building.  The archive has over 15,000 books, plus manuscripts and letters serving magicians, historians and screenwriters.  The documentation is all created by magicians for magicians.  The magic library has taken on the sometimes dueling missions of preserving the art and making it more accessible—while being entrusted with mysteries magicians have guarded for centuries.  The center doesn't allow browsers, but members of the public with specific interests can make appointments to seek out volumes such as "Indian Rope Trick" or "Mnemonica" (for memorizing cards).  The library is a warren of rooms with towering bookshelves and velvet drapes.  Labels mark sections on such topics as mentalism, ventriloquism, juggling, hypnosis, escapology, sleight-of-hand and cheating at gambling.  One of the oldest documents in the collection comes from 1476—a fragment from Caxton's "Canterbury Tales," by Chaucer.  Bill Kalush's prized page includes the passage in which a pilgrim recounts a story about a magician conjuring at a party.  Other treasures include rare Italian pamphlets from the mid-1500s sold by street magicians, and science and math books revealing magical secrets—the kind made even more rare by those who burned books they saw as witchcraft.  Mr. Kalush, a specialist in sleight-of-hand with cards, was introduced to magic by his father.  After college, he founded a produce business and began seriously collecting magic books.  They began to multiply, so in 2003 he founded the nonprofit library.  It now has six on staff, plus interns and volunteers, many of whom are magicians.  Demetria Gallegos  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323826704578356542833994224.html?mod=djemITP_h 

Pinkerton's Inc., the nation's oldest and largest security services company, donated its archives in 2000 to the Library of Congress. The archives document the history of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, founded in 1850 by Scottish immigrant Allan Pinkerton, one of the most important figures in crime detection and law enforcement during the latter half of the 19th century.  See Pinkerton National Detective Agency ad with an eye and the motto  "We never sleep" at:  http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0006/pink.html

Yellow journalism, or the yellow press, is a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell more newspapers.   Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism.  By extension, the term yellow journalism is used today as a pejorative to decry any journalism that treats news in an unprofessional or unethical fashion.  The term originated during the American Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century with the circulation battles between Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal.  The battle peaked from 1895 to about 1898, and historical usage often refers specifically to this period.  Both papers were accused by critics of sensationalizing the news in order to drive up circulation, although the newspapers did serious reporting as well.  The term was coined by Erwin Wardman, the editor of the New York Press.  Wardman was the first to publish the term but there is evidence that expressions such as "yellow journalism" and "school of yellow kid journalism" were already used by newsmen of that time.  Wardman never defined the term exactly.  Possibly it was a mutation from earlier slander where Wardman twisted "new journalism" into "nude journalism".  Wardman had also used the expression "yellow kid journalism" referring to the then-popular comic strip which was published by both Pulitzer and Hearst during a circulation war.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

"It was a dark and stormy night" is an often-mocked phrase written by Victorian novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton in the opening sentence of his 1830 novel Paul Clifford.  The phrase is considered to represent "the archetypal example of a florid, melodramatic style of fiction writing," also known as purple prose.  The phrase comes from the original opening sentence of Paul Clifford:  It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.  It is used in the 1962 novel A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle:  It was a dark and stormy night. In her attic bedroom Margaret Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind.  Behind the trees clouds scudded frantically across the sky. Every few moments the moon ripped through them, creating wraithlike shadows that raced along the ground.   The Peanuts character Snoopy always begins his novels with the phrase "It was a dark and stormy night," and a book by Charles M. Schultz is titled It Was a Dark and Stormy Night, Snoopy.  The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest was formed in 1982.  The contest, sponsored by the English Department  at San Jose State University, recognizes the worst examples of "dark and stormy night" writing. It challenges entrants to compose "the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels."  The "best" of the resulting entries have been published in a series of paperback books, starting with It Was a Dark and Stormy Night in 1984.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_was_a_dark_and_stormy_night 

Lytonny of Grand Prize Winners, 1983-2012  http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/lyttony.html