Dear Geist,
Doesn’t the word
which has two opposite meanings, cause misunderstandings? You’d think someone would come up with a replacement word.
—
Dear Gloria,
Quite right—oversight can mean the act of watching over something, or the failure to notice something. It is one of many contronyms, or autoantonyms: words with contradictory meanings. Others include strike (to hit, or to fail to hit), bolt (to fasten something or to take off) and presently (at this time, or soon). As with so many words in English, and other languages, contronyms evolve gradually, and speakers and writers pick up the meaning from the context. Would people latch on to a great new word if we had one? Maybe, but we cannot know—language has a life of its own.
—The Editors