some silly thoughts regarding antonyms

[kjpepper]

1) It's a little sad that the antonyms of "inert" and "inept" aren't "ert" and "ept". While you could say "adept" is the opposite of "inept", there is no such word as "adert."

2) The antonym of both "Positive" and "Affirmative" is "Negative." (See, watching T2 a bunch of times can actually teach you something.) Which makes it just about impossible to reverse the meaning of that song "Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch onto the affirmative, don't mess with mister in-between" withough repeating "negative." Crafty buggers, whoever wrote that song.

These thoughts arose in the context of a mental ramble in which I marveled at the phenomenon of how in order to be a thoroughly likable person you have to be a) opinionless b) spineless c) adept at lying to people d) adept at dissembling, which is almost but not quite the same thing as c. e) all or at least some of the above. I think with that realization I'm through trying to be one. :-/

Comments

[sundart.livejournal.com]

I think that depends on who you're trying to be likable for. I like people with opinions and spines, and don't enjoy finding out that people have lied to me.

What you've described is what I would call "customer service niceness". That's when you smile at people and give them all their own way while commenting privately to your friends about how dumb and/or mean they are. It's only appropriate for certain situations. It can come in handy when trying not to, say, pick a fight with your landlord, or get into a long religious discussion with a crazy dude on the street. But it's not appropriate to use towards people you actually care about.

[kjpepper.livejournal.com]

and yet people do. ALL THE TIME.

[sydneycat.livejournal.com]

For me..it's a big ol' scoop of "ZOMG I HATE CONFLICT!" Which is a serious personal failing on my part which I continuously try to work on being better about.

On a completely unrelated note...

[extrajoker.livejournal.com]

...this "WTF" icon kinda bothers me.

Your hair looks cool, but your expression....

Well, you look sorta like you just got squirted with the "bad cat" bottle.

I guess that's the point, and all. But still.