There’s actually a whole class of these words. They’re called heterological words.
Their opposite, autological (or homological) words are words that do describe themselves. “Autological” is an autological word because it describes itself.
Here’s a fun question, though: is “heterological” a heterological word? If you say yes, then that means it does not describe itself and therefore it is not heterological. If you say no, then it does describe itself therefore it is heterological. Bit of a head scratcher.
This is the Grelling-Nelson paradox.
Why is autological an autological word?
Because it refers to itself, it’s like the trivial case
How does it refer to itself?
It would need to already have been referring to itself to refer to itself
I think you’re right, it made sense earlier but not anymore
I think you’re right. There’s a bit of an infinite regress problem, isn’t there?
My favorite homological word:
Sesquipedalian.
An unnecessarily long word, or a person who uses unnecessarily long words.
Sesquipedalian is a sesquipedalian word.
Oooh, that’s a good one! Its use also makes its user described by itself. Neat!
the new administration has banned the use of homological words so be careful.
I used to be really interested in paradoxes, but I decided in my old age that they’re all just bloody annoying and pointless. 99% of paradoxes are just linguistics. All these philosophers who spent their lives debating them are infuriating bastards. “Oh you’ve come up with another unsolvable word puzzle have you? Well that’s language for you - an abstraction developed by the fallible. Congratulations mate, great use of everyone’s time.”
OK, Grandpa, back to bed. j/k j/k :)
We have multiple industries (movie/tv/gaming/sports) whose main focus is “wasting” time. Finding some enjoyment in linguistics and logic certainly isn’t any more of a waste.
Haha I’m just being dismissive, but greater minds than mine have made the same point.
I read something a while back about Ludwig Wittgenstein (in a YouTube comment of all places). He basically said “It turns out that Philosophy, my entire life’s work, is just a language game and, in the end just like a game, it can be fun and challenging, but ultimately meaningless.” Everyone disagreed then immediately went back to playing their own games, trying to prove him wrong by proving him right.
You’re the substitute teacher who wouldn’t let us play Heads Up Seven Up.
Isn’t there a mistake in your first statement about the word heterological? If I say yes the word heterological is heterological it means that it doesn’t fall into the class of words that it describes and so it is heterological, because as you’ve defined heterological words do not describe themselves
Here’s a fun question, though: is “heterological” a heterological word? If you say yes, then that means it does not describe itself and therefore it is not heterological.
You’re correct! I had an extra not in there. Good catch.
That’s how you know it’s a real head scratcher
I was actually referring to the other “not” that was at the end, but it only shows why it is paradoxical and how confusing nature of predication is in languages, as in this question appears to be a case of Russell’s paradox of sets
Just a good reason not to dabble in paradoxes before you’ve had some coffee. lol
hyphen-ated
Was it delicious?
What sadist put an S in lisp?
Same person who named the fear of long words Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia
And who spelt dyslexia like that
I think I first saw this question on coolsig.com in the late nineties.
Also, I just discovered that site still exists. Fun!
Wait, I thought it’s a th?
This seems to apply to a number of speech impediments, as “rhotacism” is the term for people with difficulty saying R sounds and apparently “stutter” is a particularly difficult word for people with stutters.
List Processing, ya know?
The hyphen has long been killed by the Internet. It suffered a worse fate than “literally”; it faded into nothingness without even so much as a “where is it?”
!hyphenated.
Important hyphenated.
CSS is a strange language too
That’s one of the syntax usages that irritates me the most in any language.
Unhyphenated. Also, nonhyphenated is correct in multiple style manuals.
hyphenated words are on their way out. not much use for the hyphen in most cases.
It’s more an in-between-state what words go through and when they are done, new ones follow
