[jffry]

Sanction is such a strange word. It can mean both "giving permission or approval" as well as "giving a penalty for noncompliance with a rule or law"

I also misread the headline as the latter instead of the former, likely because of the latter type of sanctions being in the news as of late.

[tcskeptic]

Ah! Contronyms! Words that can mean a thing... and it's opposite (or nearly so).

Dust, cleave, overlook... many others. One of those enjoyable corners of the language.

[mijoharas]

For anyone else that was confused, apparently there is an alternate usage of the word 'Cleave' that means 'to adhere' (rather than 'to cut' or 'to separate').[0]

I hadn't heard of that one.

[0] https://www.dailywritingtips.com/75-contronyms-words-with-co...

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cleave#:~:text=De...

[singingboyo]

I almost feel like that specific usage should come with the 'archaic' tag, but it's reasonably common in slightly older novels, I think? Things like "He still cleaves to the imagined ideals of his forefathers".

It definitely tends to be used in a more philosophical sense than the very physical "cleave a block of wood in two", though.

[hunter2_]

"Biweekly" is a good one (half as often as weekly, but also twice as often as weekly).

[navbaker]

The Amelia Bedelia series of children's books get tons of mileage from these types of words.

[jffry]

Weird quirks of language (English and others) usually have interesting histories too.

[Steltek]

You've mooted a very good point. The English language is full of contradictions and condones many deceptive spellings.

[victorbond]

All totally correct. Thanks for commenting.