Here’s an ambiguous sentence for you: “Because of the agency’s oversight, the corporation’s behavior was sanctioned.” Does that mean, 'Because the agency oversaw the company’s behavior, they imposed a penalty for some transgression' or does it mean, 'Because the agency was inattentive, they overlooked the misbehavior and gave it their approval by default'? We’ve stumbled into the looking-glass world of “contronyms”—words that are their own antonyms.
Read the full text here: http://mentalfloss.com/article/49834/14-words-are-their-own-opposites#ixzz2ouvNRTMt --brought to you by mental_floss!
Do not feel bad when you don't understand a native speaker. Sometimes the Americans don't understand the English.
"Jason Stratham is a major mumbler in most of his movies. Between his British accent and his persona of being too cool to enunciate clearly, my husband and I had to resort to watching this with the subtitles on, to get every last line of dialogue."
http://gvpl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/1614496041_blitz
"I liked movie, but could have loved it except for the holes in the plot that were not explained and mostly the thick British accents that I could not understand as a Yank. I watched it again on Netflix and used "subtitles" and it was better."
http://ca.movies.yahoo.com/photos/biggest-bombs-of-2013-1387569394-slideshow/biggest-bombs-photo-1387569928869.html"
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