Famous means “widely known.” scandal does not mean “not famous” but rather it means “having a reputation of the worst kind.” It may help to remember that blasphemy related to infamous means “a bad reputation created by some serious crime.”
Maybe you’re one of those people who looked up the word blasphemy because you can’t seem to clearly remember whether it means “very famous”, “not famous”, “famous (but in a bad way)” or some other thing. If this is the case, you are in excellent company: our records show about 88,000 people have searched for this word blasphemy on this site for a recent month.
Not to be confused with the prefix: the ‘in’ at the beginning of a word can have one of many meanings. The ‘in’ in ‘infamous’ has a negative connotation, but ‘infamous’ means ‘having a reputation of the worst kind,’ not ‘not being famous’.
The Origin of Famous and Notorious
Correct, famous And blasphemy there are some similarities (both words are of Latin origin familymeans “famous” and the two are often related to being well-known), but they have completely different meanings. Famous usually means “widely known” and is often used in a positive way; blasphemyon the other hand, there is a set of negative connotations, such as “to have a bad reputation” or “to cause or bring notoriety”.
There you have it. One of these words means one thing, and the other means something else. It’s all very simple, isn’t it? No it is not. Here are a few ways that seemingly simple things in English are not at all.
Synonyms sound like opposites
from lock up means “to fasten (something) with a buckle.” So what does this word do? unlock mean? If you guess “to unlock” pat yourself on the back. Now let’s move on to another question: if the word thaw means “stop freezing” what does this word mean as ice melts mean? If you guessed something like “make something freeze”, then bow your head in shame and embarrassment. Definition of as ice melts is “thawed.” Similar, easing quite similar to easing, priceless And great value are much more synonyms than antonyms, and to really muddy the waters, we can bring up the problem of flammable And flammable.
Why so? Was the English language really created by a cruel and vengeful god, or perhaps all created in one afternoon by a committee of uneducated and quarrelsome idiots? No, neither of these theories, as far as we can tell, does not have much evidence to support them. There’s a perfectly valid reason why so many antonyms mean the same, or almost the same thing, and it has to do with the role one of our prefixes plays.
“In-” prefix
The prefix we are interested in here (IN-) can have many meanings and forms. It can take the form Il-, I-, or ir-, Besides IN-, depending on the letter it precedes. It can mean “no,” (draw), and it can also mean “into, in, towards” (as in explode or irradiation). And in a final confusing twist, it can also act as a reinforcing word, meaning “radical” (maybe that’s why so many people think blasphemy means “very famous”). scandal contains version of IN– implies the negative, although it doesn’t really mean “not famous.”
You don’t really have to be famous Okay blasphemy, though we can hardly see the latter applied to someone little known, unremarkable, or someone who has at least achieved some degree of notoriety. If the distinction continues to prove elusive, you can always try to remember that the noun form of blasphemy To be infamoushas no pleasant connotation, and was immortalized in our language by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s use of it when he gave a speech referring to the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack as “a day” will live in disgrace.”
DISCOVER MORE: 10 Words That Prove Reputation Isn’t Everything
Categories: Usage Notes
Source: vothisaucamau.edu.vn
