Home Proverbs Quiz Idioms Explained UK Placenames Cockney Tabloids Headlines Quiz Grammar Errors Fetch and Bring Past Continuous Seen and Heard Moving Verbs Snap
Home I Hate Bad English Interactive English English in Kensington Live English Schools of English Crosswords More Resources
Home
Home
What are antigrams?
Antigram is a new word. It is an anagram but which renders the opposite meaning.  
Here are some examples:
An antigram of
silent  -  iisten
violence  -  nice love
funeral  -  real fun
forty-five  -  over fifty
elvis  -  lives
astronomers  -  no more stars
earliest  -  arise late
within earshot  -  I wont hear this
honestly  -  on the sly
antagonist  -  not against
united  -  untied

What they say!
Remarks and quotes by people on TV and Radio

From Independent Television News:
In Australia, a prisoner went on an extreme diet to enable him to squeeze
through a space between the bars and a brick wall he had chipped away.
"Have they caught him yet? Slim chance!
"He's still at large and they have a fat chance of catching him".
Explanation
slim chance - a very small possibility    at large - free
fat chance - virtually no possibility

From an astronomer on the BBC
whilst discussing the possibility of life on other planets:
"The best argument for supposing that there is intelligent life
out there is that they haven't tried to contact us!"
Yes - very intelligent life!

Ambiguity
ITV London News, when a fire started on a 3rd "bendy bus":
"Fire has broken out on a third of London's bendy buses"
Let's hope the remaining two thirds are OK !

From BBC Teletext
"David Camerson's wife goes into labour . . ."
Explanation:
David Cameron is the leader of the British Conservative Party, the opposition to Labour.
Go into labour means begins to give birth - but here it may mean changing political parties!

Ambiguity
BBC News, regarding a new test-flight:
"New technology will allow people to travel around the world
in a few hours"
So soon at that? When are services actually starting?

BBC Ceefax, referring to the film "The Passion of Christ":
"Brothers seek French passion ban"
No passion in France? Oh my god!

BBC Weather Forecast:
"There's plenty of weather coming up through the next week"
Really? Wow - imagine the opposite: no weather at all!

A good example of tautology*!
Commentator, European Football Cup:
"It's almost the first time this unprecedented action has ever taken place in football!"

A politician you can trust?
My local Labour Party Candidate's name was, believe it or not "Nick More"
As you will realise, he didn’t win!
to nick also means to steal

A chat host on LBC radio
“. . .  it’s like throwing the baby out with the bath water to coin a cliché . . .”

It was a life-changing experience
must be an oxymoron**:
Surely every experience - by definition - must be life-changing?

*Tautology = the unnecessary use of two words or phrases to express one meaning
**Oxymoron = two words used together which have, or seem to have, opposite meanings