8 Comments

good stuff! and a nice way to start the week

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Good to see you here George! Have a good week ahead

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So interesting to learn about Janus words and loved this musings on the drifting and changing of words' meanings.

The clearest angle is seeing how they change across time, and you also made me realize how it changes across cultures. Very interesting topic, thank you for bringing it to my attention.

Also loved the Zen teachings applied to mental models. Especially enjoyed learning about the Infatuation as Distraction and The Sum of Non-Parts, beautiful!

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Thank you Oscar!!! Our dinner was what motivated me to write this actually haha so thank YOU!!

And I’m curious about Janus words in Spanish 🙃

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Ohh I'm glad and honored to hear that!! ❤️ Please keep them coming (both the dinners and the articles haha).

About Janus words in Spanish, I actually have been thinking about this since I read it and haven't come up with one, but I'm sure there are and will come back when I find them ;)

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Haha sounds good to me!! Just found a Japanese Janus word today, daijobu 大丈夫 which is no problem in both the affirmative and negative which leads to so much miscommunication lol

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Ohh I like that one! Haha I'm going to start using it 😂

And I promised to come back with some in Spanish and found a couple: "sancionar", to sanction, which is both to approve and to punish. I think it might work similarly in English.

The other is more of an expression: "en absoluto", which is both "no way" and also "everything" or the whole thing.

You've had me thinking about this a lot! Will always be looking out for some more ;)

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Love it! I've had this love of the word literally for a long time now and I think that Janus words is a great term for this idea. I love that literally means both "in a literal manner" and also "figuratively". Also the word "sick" comes to mind which has its original and usual meaning and then the 90s slang of being something cool

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