A word with two meanings though misuse could be lethal [closed]

Question

I'm currently writing an article that includes two contexts of communication: effectiveness and competence. Incompetent people can misuse terminology all day and the ideas are effective and do technically work. However I'm looking for a word or term that has two or more meanings and the misuse of could lead to bodily harm or even death; this is to promote the idea of the aspect of competently communicating one's ideas.

What word if not used competently could end up leading to injury or death in a context that most people could understand with little-to-no explanation?

Answer 1

Does it have to be a single word?

Derek Bentley was convicted of the murder of a policeman in 1952 and hanged the following year. He and an accomplice, Christopher Craig, were burgling a warehouse and Craig was armed with a pistol. When the police cornered Bentley and Craig, Craig drew the gun. A policeman told Craig to give him the gun and Bentley allegedly responded, "Let him have it, Chris." Craig shot the policeman in the shoulder and later shot another policeman dead.

During the trial, the prosecution claimed that "Let him have it" meant "shoot him", whereas the defence claimed that, if Bentley had said those words at all, he meant "give the gun to him."

Bentley was subsequently posthumously pardoned in 1993 and his conviction quashed in 1998, because of a multitude of problems, not least Bentley's mental state, an apparently falsified confession and the trial judge failing to properly direct the jury.

Answer 2

This may not be exactly what you are looking for, but might work in the context.

inflammable

Many people see the "in" as a negative prefix, and believe anything marked inflammable is flame retardant. However, both flammable and inflammable have the same meaning:

...both mean "capable of being easily ignited and of burning quickly." This makes no sense to the Modern English speaker. In English, we think of in- as a prefix that means "not": inactive means "not active," inconclusive means "not conclusive," inconsiderate means "not considerate." Therefore, inflammable should mean "not flammable."

-Merriam Webster

Because of this, volatile or combustible materials are often labeled as "flammable" to avoid a potentially hazardous misinterpretation.

Answer 3

Here are some examples:

When replacing a water pump, one must be sure to get the timing right in order to avoid damaging the engine.

In this case 'the timing' could be misconstrued as the time of day, as opposed to the timing of the engine. This omission really can wreck an engine.

These snakes are not poisonous.

This is tangential to your purpose, but a precise statement using a word like 'poisonous', which people think is synonymous with venomous, could easily misinform a reader. [To be clear, being venomous is about your bite being toxic, being poisonous is about if you being bitten is toxic.]

Be sure to change the water in your fish tank bimonthly.

Poor fish, bimonthly means both twice a month and every other month. (biweekly has the same problem.)

Answer 4

One word with good potential here is oversight which can mean both supervision and omission. Thus it is important to ensure oversight of the process can mean keep an eye on it or ignore it.

Another simple example: "ensure all alarms and warning lights are set off at the end of the shift".

Wikipedia has a list of such autoantonyms which could prove instructive.

Answer 5

Doesn't translate in spelling - but does verbally:

"raise" vs "raze".

"Raise a barn" - means to errect/construct it

"Raze a barn" - means to burn it to the ground

Answer 6

Since I've already botched this one myself, there is the prescribe/proscribe pair that can have serious unintended consequences.

prescribe

2 : to designate or order the use of as a remedy prescribed a painkiller a prescribed burn to restore natural forest conditions

proscribe

2 : to condemn or forbid as harmful or unlawful : prohibit

both from MW online

Answer 7

There are many contranyms which meet your requirements. Here is a list of 75 possible candidates, including:

Cleave: to join or to separate

Dike: a wall or a ditch

Left: remaining or departed

EDIT: adding Gust van de Wal's comment from below:

Cleave: "Yeah so there's a crack in one of the bombshells. Make sure you cleave it, otherwise it might explode"

Dike: "Quickly, there is a tsunami coming! Go to the dike!"

Left: Leaving a burning building "How about the other people??" "Nobody's left"

Answer 8

Hyperthermia and Hypothermia in quick speech (especially in non-Rhotic dialects) can sound very similar. Similar with hypo and hyper for diabetics. The hypo- prefix in medicine means "deficient" whereas the hyper- prefix means "excessive". They therefore usually refer to conditions that are the exact opposite of each other, where the correct treatment for one can instead exacerbate the opposite condition.

Answer 9

Suppose you have two students, Bill and Susan, who are running from a pack of hungry beasts. "Make yourself fast!" Bill shouts, calling on Susan to move more quickly. Instead, she ties herself down to a nearby tree.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/fast

Firmly fixed or fastened.

"No, no," Bill shouts, "I mean go fast!"

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/fast

moving or able to move, operate, function, or take effect quickly; quick; swift; rapid:

Luckily, the beasts listened as well, and moved right past the both of them.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/fast

to abstain from all food.

Answer 10

I'm really not sure whether the OP is asking for words that truly have more than one CORRECT meaning(like "sanction"), or for examples or words that are commonly MIS-used or misunderstood, but here goes:

Radiologist reads an Xray and dictates into his report: "This finding obviates the need for a CT scan." The guy saying this, THINKS that obviates means "makes obvious," when of course it means the opposite. The physician reading the report(and applying it to his patient) takes the CORRECT meaning, which is "to prevent, remove or avoid" and doesn't order the CT scan.

Answer 11

Fire!

In a firing squad, this command gets someone shot.

In any other circumstance, it warns that there is a danger of things being aflame.

If someone shouts it at a firing range, then it could potentially be misinterpreted in fatal ways.

• An active shooting squad could open fire, taking a life that could have been pardoned at the last minute;
• Trainers on the firing range could open fire, shooting people they didn't notice who were cleaning the range;
• It could be ignored as a warning by everyone in the vicinity in the assumption that it is a command, allowing the flames to take lives.

To be honest, the first two are unlikely in any case where the shooters have had any gun training whatsoever, but still. It's an example where context could kill.

Answer 12

I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but it happened two years ago near where I live: Dutch teen killed in bungee accident misunderstood verbal instructions

And this is where a linguistic misunderstanding gets lethal:

The ongoing police investigation into the accident now seems to point to a linguistic misunderstanding as a possible cause. Sources believe that the young woman thought she heard the monitor say “now jump,” instead of “no jump,” prompting her to leap off the bridge before her harness had been properly fixed.

It was the monitor's fault, obviously. Knowing correct English grammar could've saved the girl's life.

Answer 13

So, you're a snowplough operator working at an airport, and you're told to "Clear Runway 08 immediately!" Do you start removing the snow, or get out of the way of the incoming aircraft?

Answer 14

I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for, but...

I was hanging out with a group of young (20's give or take a few years) guys in a park in a moderately rough area of New Orleans (by NOLA standards. Anywhere else I've lived it would have been downright rough) in the mid 1980's. This was a deeply homophobic time, and in the deep South.

A guy visiting from Australia came up to us and asked for "a fag". It was eventually established that this was how cigarettes are referred to in his country, but there were some really tense moments there.^*

In that time and place "fag" only meant you were calling someone out as a homosexual. Practically, it was used as the absolute best way to start a fight with a guy quickly if you didn't want to bother with a lot of pre-fight foreplay.

^{* - Lest your 2017 brain think this wasn't that serious, a few years prior to that a former friend of mine was arrested for helping beat to death a gay guy near a convenience store. The Matthew Sheppard death a decade later was only unusual that people put up a fuss about it. So yes, in that time and place this could be a life-or-death matter. The "Good old days" weren't all that good.}

Answer 15

"Before I go on vacation, just remember this piece of advice: you can never put too much water in the nuclear reactor"

This can either be a dire warning that too much water can cause major problems or a recommendation that when in doubt, one should flood the reactor.

Context and phrasing are unhelpful in determining the actual intent of the message and misinterpretation could cause dire consequences.

Answer 16

"If we're going to have unprotected sex, I want to be certain that we don't catch anything from each other. Are you sure of your HIV status?"

"I'm positive."

Answer 17

Nigger
Nigger is used as both a racial slur and term of endearment. Demonstrates how the same word can have an antipodal meaning.


EDIT: Per requests, below is a fuller elaboration of the above.

this is to promote the idea of the aspect of competently communicating one's ideas.

Words are symbols that reflect an idea. When we communicate with another person, one assumption we are making is that our words map to the same, or at the very least, a similar idea.

Problems emerge when the idea we are trying to convey with a particular word has different meaning to our recipient. The importance of this is that in order to communicate competently, we need to appreciate that it takes more than just words in order to "speak the same language".

I think nigger is a good example of this, with the N-word and nigga reflecting our peculiar attempts to navigate this treacherous terrain.

By way of example, we consider the following scene from the comedy film 40 Year Old Virgin (2005).

Here, two African-American men get into an argument. At first, nigger is used endearingly, but interpreted to mean servitude. Matters quickly escalate:

Customer: Now don't be a negro, be my nigga. aight, help me out.
Jay: Woah woah woah hold on, I ain't nobody's nigga.

Customer: Well, I mean you's somebody's nigga, wearing this nigga tie.

Jay: Now you're being condescending. See you've been warned aight. Just move forward amicably.

[Further antagonism by customer]

Jay: Okay see, see now you found yourself a nigga. You was looking for a nigga, Nigga here now!

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmYkt2RkhsI

In the following, we note attempts to reconcile these two contrasting meanings by attempting to delineate nigga from nigger.

Disagreement about the appropriateness of this resulted in the suspension of a high school teacher. The image below is a satirisation of the event in an episode of the animated comedy Boondocks

The original news report may be viewed here and is recommended. I find it both hilarious and interesting:

https://youtu.be/XURRzofbMc0

Lethality of misuse

Would misuse of nigger lead to actual bodily harm or death? Although it's possible, it's highly unlikely. However, I firmly believe that its inappropriate use can effectively lead to a type of social death.

One example of this is the end of the stand-up comedy career of Michael Richards, who played the character Kramer in the TV comedy series Seinfeld after he used nigger in a comedy routine.

Answer 18

How about 'resign' ?

Arsenal fans devastated as Wenger resigns

This could either mean he quits his job by resigning from it, or commits his future to it by re-signing with the team.

Answer 19

"execution". Very positive meaning in planning, but with the secondary meaning of judicially sanctioned murder....

Answer 20

Any case where the same word is used for a person's or animals job or role and a machine/tool/implement/software product (or its brand) could end in serious tragedy at least:

"Not willing to work with this editor for a minute longer" — not good in a company that has computers and people writing news copy.

"Throw out the foreman!" — both a brand of grill and the chief on a crew of workers

"The watchdog is full of bugs, kill it!" — a computer program or a canine?

"This aviation show is not going on TV since the pilot failed."

"This driver regularly crashes the bus" — this could describe a computer hardware problem or traffic accidents ... and be a confusing problem description in automotive software!

Answer 21

I have two examples to offer.

The first is not so much English, as visual, but definitely can lead to a dangerous situation in normal life:

• In the UK, the road sign for "Cycling Forbidden" is a red circle with a bicycle symbol inside:

  But I have met people (mostly teenagers or people who don't drive) who honestly believe this means "Official Cycle Route".

  You would expect cycling to be forbidden in places where it is dangerous to do so, so obviously this signage could be improved (most common suggestion being to put a red line through it the circle.)

The second suggestion may not lead to physical danger, but could be socially awkward or embarrassing:

• I've met foreign-language speakers who confuse sensible and sensitive, for example, if they say: "I've very sensible about your position."

Answer 22

What word if not used competently could end up leading to injury or death in a context that most people could understand with little-to-no explanation?

The word is "ok".

Well, this example does require a somewhat elaborate explanation, but the use of the word "ok" by an air traffic controller was a contributing factor in the Tenerife airport disaster in 1977, a collision of two planes that killed 583 people and was the deadliest accident in aviation history.

More generally, the events leading to the collision involved several language-based communication failures that led to the decision of the pilot of one of the planes to begin a takeoff roll despite not receiving an official clearance to take off from air traffic control. The nonstandard use of the word "ok" by the air traffic controller was apparently one of the possible sources of the confusion. As Wikipedia explains:

The controller, who could not see the runway due to the fog, initially responded with "OK" (terminology which is nonstandard), which reinforced the KLM captain's misinterpretation that they had takeoff clearance. The controller's response of "OK" to the co-pilot's nonstandard statement that they were "now at takeoff" was likely due to his misinterpretation that they were in takeoff position and ready to begin the roll when takeoff clearance was received, but not in the process of taking off.

As I said, the full analysis of the causes of he accident is a lot more complicated. The Wikipedia article has a detailed account of this tragic event, which incidentally led to a serious reform of radio communication procedures for pilots and controllers (including the implementation of strict rules regarding when specific words such as "takeoff" may be used).

Indeed, even after that reform, poor verbal communication has been a direct cause or a contributing factor in many aviation accidents, though the Tenerife airport disaster is clearly the most dramatic and tragic example. The folks over at aviation.stackexchange will surely know about many more stories illustrating the crucial importance of communication in aviation safety.

Answer 23

Perhaps a French person seeking a bottle of fish juice might drink from a bottle marked with the English word "Poison". (The French "Poisson" meaning "fish")

Answer 24

Death, probably not, but level of pain inflicted, highly dependant.

If I, an Englishman, pinch a woman's fanny I'm likely to be kicked soundly in the groin, whereas if an American pinches a woman's fanny he might get away with being slapped.

In order to avoid damage to my family jewels I would have to turn her around and pinch her bum. Oh dear, there I go again. I mean her bottom, not the neighbourhood homeless man.

This is why the British have bum bags, whilst Americans have fanny packs.

Answer 25

The word 'five' is generally omitted from countdowns for warfare or similar given its similarity to the word 'fire'

e.g. Six... ... Four... Three.. Two...

Answer 26

Go with "sanguine".

adjective

1. cheerfully optimistic, hopeful, or confident: a sanguine disposition; sanguine expectations.
2. bloody; sanguinary.

The juxtaposition between its meanings for both hopeful and bloody make it a cinch for this kind of use. The phrase "I'm looking for a sanguine resolution of this situation" could mean either a positive outcome or something more along the lines of "shoot everyone in the head."

Hopeful or bloody... it's a word that really covers all your options. :)

Answer 27

"load".

• Put stuff in a vehicle or ship or means of storage, run computer programs .... mostly harmless.

• put strain on construction or electrical equipment ... can go wrong if overdone

• Make a firearm operational ... mostly not harmless at all.

Answer 28

An innocent man with unfortunate luck in the courts stands before a firing squad and pleads for his life.

The captain, an hardened officer with no patience for drama, calmly says "Ready." His the squad prepares to fire.

The captain nonchalantly orders: "Aim" and the squad levels their rifles.

Suddenly, an red-faced courier arrives with a last-minute commutation from the local magistrate. The captain reads the letter with disappointment. "Ah, shoot."

Answer 29

John lives with and takes care of his elderly mother. In order for John to go on a vacation, John's brother, Carl, volunteers to help with the care of their mother. John verbally lists all the daily tasks that Carl will need to do to help their mother--Carl won't need to stay there but will have to check in at least a couple times every day.

One of the instructions that John gives Carl regards their mother's medicines. "She has four prescriptions waiting for pickup tomorrow at the pharmacist. You'll need to pick those up so you can give them to her." The next day, Carl goes to the pharmacist and gets the prescription refills. He takes them to the mother's residence and sets them on the counter, telling her where they are. After completing his other chores, Carl leaves for the night. The next day, Carl finds his mother in a bad medical state.

When John used the word give, he intended for Carl to make sure the medicines were administered to the mother. Carl took it as meaning to hand over possession of. He didn't realize that the elderly woman had trouble remembering how and when to take her prescriptions.

Answer 30

1— What did you do with the damaged part of the engine?

2— I have simply replaced it.

1— Fine, you can restart operations then.

...Of course if "replace" in the mind of 2 means "Put (something) back in a previous place or position" while it is "Provide a substitute for (something that is broken, old, or inoperative)", then restarting operations may be very dangerous...