2020-11-22
ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด O – Oversight & omission
การใช้ภาษาอังกฤษ ที่ถือว่า ถูกต้องนี้ เป็นไปตามมาตรฐานการใช้ภาษา
การใช้คำอังกฤษ ไม่กำหนดมาตฐาน ถือตามส่วนใหญ่ที่ใช้แต่ละท้องถิ่น
ความหมาย อาจผันแปร ขึ้นอยู่กับ ตำแหน่ง/หน้าที่ ในประโยค
Dictionary.com
ออกเสียง Oversight = ‘OH-ver-sahyt’
ออกเสียง Omission = ‘oh-MISH-uhn’
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Word History
Janus Words - oversight.
These words are their own opposites
Many people—native-speakers and learners alike
—decry English as being illogical,
and they point to pairs like flammable and inflammable as examples.
But there are other words that are just as frustrating:
Janus words.
A 'Janus word' is a word that is its own opposite
—like 'fast', which can refer both to
moving very quickly and to staying put.
Frequentlydescribed as "words that are their own opposites,"
Janus words are also known as contronyms, antagonyms, or auto-antonyms.
These arewords that have developed contradictory meanings.
Cleave isoften cited as the go-to contronym:
it canrefer to splitting something apart and uniting two things.
But it's notthe only one out there,
and there isusually some sort of logic behind most auto-antonyms.
Manyauto-antonyms developed their contradictory meanings
througha process of semantic broadening;
that is, a word that has a more specific meaning
gains a broader and more general meaning later on in its life.
Peruse is a good example of this.
The inversealso happens:
a wordthat begins life with a broad meaning
gains a number of more specific meanings
that developin parallel to each other,
but in away that results in two contradictory and later meanings.
Sanction is one such word. When it entered English, it referred to an oath. Over time, it came to refer to something that would compel someone or something to moral behavior (as an oath might); later, it gainedthe two contradictory senses that refer to approval and economic disapproval—both of which might compel a person or a country to behave better.
The samething happened with oversight.
It originallyreferred to watchful care or supervision,
butthrough an extension of meaning, people also began to use it torefer to the thing that watchful care or supervision gets rid of: errors of omission.
As with sanction, both meanings are still in use today,
leading toplenty of jokes about what exactly
"Congressional oversight" is describing.
Sometimes, a contronym develops
becausewe conflate two homographs which are not actually related.
This is the case with cleave, which is actually two separate verbs:
one whichmeans "to split" (from the Old English verb cleōfan, which means "to split"),
and one which means "to adhere firmly or loyally" (from the Old English verb clifian, which means "to adhere").
The samegoes for clip, whose contronymous meanings are actually from two discrete verbs that mean "to attach something" and "to cut off."
Occasionally, we can't be sure why exactly a word develops auto-antonymous meanings.
Take fast, which can refer both to moving very quickly
("a car moving really fast")
and to staying put ("he was held fast by the ropes").
The"firmly fixed" meaning is the earliest meaning we have for the adverb fast.
It later developed other meanings, including "close"—and this meaning, which has now fallen out of use, somehow inspired English speakers to use fast to refer to speed.
Fast has been its own antonym since the 13th century, which goes to show thatJanus words have been with us—and will continue to be with us—for a long time.
Dictionary of Problem Words and Expression
Oversight & omission
These words have a related meaning, but careful users distinguish between them.
An oversight is
- (1) A failure to consider or notice and
- (2) An error due to carelessness:
“Because of my oversight I never saw the landing.”
“Through oversight, I failed to date the check.”
Omission is a more general word implying something left out, not done, or neglected:
“Lack of a signature is an omission on this check.”
“An oversight is usually due to carelessness; and omissionmay be intentional or unintentional.
