'Arguable' is a word that a careful writer, one who strives for clarity of expression, should probably avoid. I have always used it to mean: it may be plausibly argued that. But then I noticed that some use it to mean: open to dispute, questionable. These two meanings, though not polar opposites, are inconsistent.
The two meanings of the verb 'cleave,' however, are polar opposites: to stick together (intransitive) and to split apart (transitive). Merriam-Webster:
Cleave is part of an exclusive lexical club whose members are known as contronyms: words that have two meanings that contradict one another. In the case of cleave the two meanings belong to two etymologically distinct words. One cleave means “to adhere firmly and closely or loyally and unwaveringly,” as in “a family that cleaves to tradition”; it comes from the Old English verb clifian, meaning “to adhere.” The cleave with meanings relating to splitting and dividing comes from a different Old English word, clēofan, meaning “to split.” So although one might assume the two were once cleaved to one another only to become cloven over time, such is not the case!
One is never done learning the mother tongue. Mine is English. I fancy myself a worthy son who honors his mother, a mother who is also a mistress whom I will never master.
Just the other day, my assiduous editor, Tony Flood, pointed out that my use of 'enjoin' in a manuscript he is helping me prepare for publication, though a correct use, was ambiguous in the manner of 'cleave.' Now I have a keen nose for ambiguity, both syntactic and semantic, but this ambiguity had escaped me all these years. The verb 'enjoin' can mean either "to direct or impose by authoritative order or with urgent admonition" or "forbid, prohibit." I had been laboring under the misapprehension that it carried only the first meaning.
All hail to the mistress we will never master, our alma mater, the matrix of our musings, the sacred enabler of our thoughts.
This is why, to keep with the maternal metaphor, the subversion of language is the mother of all subversion.
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