zompist bboard

So you can say that sonething's suspicious, and that you are therefore suspicious of the thing that's suspicious. Any other adjectives with this kind of double/opposite meaning?

Aburrido. Another lump-together I find odd is 'suicide', both the act and the one committing it.

It's fading a bit, but in old-fashioned speech jealous works like this.

X owns A, and Y thinks they should own A. Y is jealous of X, and X is jealous of A. Though, as I say, the latter meaning isn't found so commonly these days, presumably due to the confusion it causes (particularly when A is a person, so that "X is jealous of A" can have either meaning).

'Healthy' seems to have replaced 'healthful' these days.
Also 'nostalgic' seems to describe either the feeling or the thing that causes the feeling.

Normally it is people who are happy or sad, but there can also be happy accidents and happy outcomes, sad divorces and sad movies, and other such things where it is understood that the thing is not itself happy or sad, but rather causing of happiness or sadness in others..

We can put these into formulaic examples to see what else fits:

The suspicious package made me suspicious.
The happy outcome made me happy.
The sad movie made me sad.
The tough job made me tough.
The (un)healthy food made me (un)healthy.
....what else?

(Note that this formula shows causativity twice, first by using the first adjective and second by using "made me". If that redundancy is missing, the adjective fails the test: it is merely ascribing the same traits to the first element that it does to the second, not causing them in the second. For example "The sick person made me sick too".)

The dubious proposal made me dubious.
The lustful book made me lustful.
The curious book made me curious. [but the senses seem to have diverged: peculiar vs. wanting-to-know]

seeing that man's painful would was quite painful
the dreamy story made me dreamy
that evil place made me evil

yes, adjectives can modify persons or non-person subjects. in principle, it might make sense to speak of the porcelain cup made me porcelain [say, if the cup was cursed and it turned people into ceramic]

My friend calls people scary if they get scared easily. It really confused me at first.

The French word "hôte" is like this. It can mean both host and guest. I remember coming across another French word like this, an adjective, but I forgot the word.

To cleave:
Split or sever (something), esp. along a natural line or grain.
Stick fast to: "Rose's mouth was dry, her tongue cleaving to the roof of her mouth".

Hubris Incalculable wrote:To cleave:
Split or sever (something), esp. along a natural line or grain.
Stick fast to: "Rose's mouth was dry, her tongue cleaving to the roof of her mouth".

These are two different words. And also not what finlay was referring to.

zompist wrote:

Hubris Incalculable wrote:To cleave:
Split or sever (something), esp. along a natural line or grain.
Stick fast to: "Rose's mouth was dry, her tongue cleaving to the roof of her mouth".

These are two different words. And also not what finlay was referring to.

Okay. I misunderstood.

My bad.

Nonstandard: claustrophobic.

"This room is claustrophobic. It's making me uncomfortable because I'm claustrophobic."

clawgrip wrote: Also 'nostalgic' seems to describe either the feeling or the thing that causes the feeling.

As in "I saw the nostalgic on the table."?

No, but e.g. "the nostalgic telephone". "Nostalgic" here is a property of the object (the telephone), but the word does double duty in that looking at that object can make you nostalgic, which of course doesn't mean that you become a vintage object, or that the vintage object has inherent feelings of nostalgia.

valiums wrote:

clawgrip wrote: Also 'nostalgic' seems to describe either the feeling or the thing that causes the feeling.

As in "I saw the nostalgic on the table."?

I never said that 'nostalgic' could be used as a noun. I said it describes the feeling or the thing that causes the feeling, i.e. it functions as an adjective that modifies a noun representing something that induces nostalgia, e.g. a nostalgic place, or a noun representing the resulting experience of nostalgia, e.g. a nostalgic mood. Like Jipi said.