I've been idling though GoogleNews looking for articles on English that would be of interest to this board. This from tomorrow's Christian Science Monitor.
"Invaluable" means valuable and "inflammable" means flammable, but "invisible" is the opposite of "visible."
When we send a package by car, it is called a "shipment," but if we send it by ship, it is called "cargo."
We drive on a parkway, but park in a driveway.
Apartments are the buildings closest together,
rush-hour traffic actually is slow.
We still recite at a play, but we play at a recital.
Our feet can smell, and our nose can run.
On television shows we can have a "guest host."
When a lamp is out, it is not shining, but if the stars are out, they are.
"He has left" means he is not here, but "he is left" means he is still present.
With time, the meaning of some words has been reversed:
"terrific," used to mean something awful;
"awful," used to mean "full of awe,"
"Quantum leap" - which is now often considered something like a great stride - was, in its original physics meaning, the smallest possible step (in energy) one could make.
Information theory (the branch of mathematics used for such things as data compression in computer communications) indicates that English is about 75 percent or more redundant. This means - in information-theory terms - that when writing in English, one can only be about 25 percent original, while the rest of what is being written is pretty much dictated by the constraints of spelling, words available, grammar, and so forth.
"Invaluable" means valuable and "inflammable" means flammable, but "invisible" is the opposite of "visible."
This is because there are two different prefixes in-: the first augmenting and the second negating.This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd, January 04, 2007 16:03
Information theory (the branch of mathematics used for such things as data compression in computer communications) indicates that English is about 75 percent or more redundant. This means - in information-theory terms - that when writing in English, one can only be about 25 percent original, while the rest of what is being written is pretty much dictated by the constraints of spelling, words available, grammar, and so forth.
What it means is that if you treat English text as a string of characters you can losslessly compress it to about 25% of its original size, nothing else. Switching to a non-redundant language will not, unfortunately, increase your originality by 300%.
Not exactly. If something is valuable, you would sell it for only a great amount of money while if it is invaluable, you would not sell it for any amount.
Of course it's always possible to pick these things to pieces but as they are intended for humour not education, personally I just have a laugh and don't worry about them.
"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson.
Hey, Granny and TrossL, good to see you both back. Now stay! 
