Going to a quiz every so often is a great way to have fun with friends. But one surprising quiz round made me change the way I think about the English language. 

之前有一次和朋友玩“猜词儿”游戏，简直打开了我对英语的“新世界大门”。

The theme of the round was contronyms (反义同形词) ‑ words that have contradictory (对立的) meanings.

游戏主题是“反义同形词”——就是那种，明明是同一个单词，却有截然不同的含义。

The English word “dust” is one of the examples. Dust can mean to clean up the house and remove dirt as well as mean to add powder (粉末) to something, such as covering a cake with sugar.

英文单词“dust”就是一个例子。作动词，它可以表达“清扫、掸土”也可以表示往某物上撒粉末，比如在蛋糕上撒糖。

The reason for this phenomenon is the complex cultural history of the English language. Sometimes the connotation (内涵意义) and “feeling” of a word changes over time as society uses the word more often, for example from positive to negative, according to The Economist. When this new meaning appears alongside the word’s original meaning, you have a contronym. 

到底为啥会有这种“复杂的词汇”呢？词汇所表达的意思，可能会随着大家实际运用的语境而改变。词义从积极的变成消极的也不是没可能。当这个词新的含义和它原先的含义并存时，就形成了反义同形词。

So that also reminds us of the important factor ‑ context. Can you think of any other contronyms in English or even Chinese? 

那怎么才能“拿捏”词义呢？上下文语境才是最重要的！其实这种语言现象，中英文都有，你还能想到哪些呢？