![a janus phrase
public service announcement: the phrase, “stay the course,” originally meant the opposite of what we think it means. nowadays when we say it we intend something like “to stay [on] the course [of something].” back in the day it meant “to stop the [procession of the] course” in the same way that staying an execution is to stop it from happening.
had you known this when double-u was going on and on about warmongering in iraq, i am sure that you and i would have shared many a chuckle.
[source]
fat bonus: here is a list of janus words (or auto-antonyms) which are words that mean their opposite. the choicest among them will be the subject of my next post (or, if you are reading this in the future, it was the subject of my prior post).](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kobxhs9Ifd1qzrip0o1_r1_400.jpg)
a janus phrase
public service announcement: the phrase, “stay the course,” originally meant the opposite of what we think it means. nowadays when we say it we intend something like “to stay [on] the course [of something].” back in the day it meant “to stop the [procession of the] course” in the same way that staying an execution is to stop it from happening.
had you known this when double-u was going on and on about warmongering in iraq, i am sure that you and i would have shared many a chuckle.
[source]
fat bonus: here is a list of janus words (or auto-antonyms) which are words that mean their opposite. the choicest among them will be the subject of my next post (or, if you are reading this in the future, it was the subject of my prior post).
