Majorly Mad
April 15, 2013
My theme for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge is contronyms. A contronym is a word with two or more opposite meanings, making it its own antonym. Click here to find out more about these quirky words.
 
Molly with the letter MWe’ve arrived at the start of the third week of the A to Z Challenge with the letter M. Are you starting to feel the burn? But we have to keep pushing through the pain, so the contronym for today is mad.
 
Mad – carried away by intense anger or hatred
 
~ or ~
 
Mad – carried away by enthusiasm or desire
 
Similar to hysterical, at its core mad is about intense emotion – it’s just that one is positive and the other is negative. Mad has various meanings, and besides these two opposite emotions, many of the other definitions also contained a range of emotional words: gaiety, merriment, resentful, excitement, confusion, agitation, frantic, hilarious, impetuous, irrational, and so on. So people who are mad are definitely worked up in some way about something.
 
I’m mad about my dogs . . .
Chloe birthday
 
. . . but sometimes I’m mad at my dogs.
Bad Chloe
 
And then there was Mad About You . . .
Mad About You
 
. . . which was a show about a recently wed couple who were mad about each other, but got into plenty of sitcom squabbles that left them mad at each other.
 
Lisa was mad about the portrait Leonardo painted of her.
 
Is Lisa pissed off because she wanted him to show off her pearly whites or is she thrilled because she knows the way he painted her smile will ensure her fame for at least 500 years?
Mona Lisa
 
Are you familiar with contronyms? Can you think of any other ‘M’ contronyms? How Marvelous does Molly look with her letter M?
My theme for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge is contronyms. A contronym is a word with two or more opposite meanings, making it its own antonym. Click here to find out more about these quirky words.
 
Molly with the letter MWe’ve arrived at the start of the third week of the A to Z Challenge with the letter M. Are you starting to feel the burn? But we have to keep pushing through the pain, so the contronym for today is mad.
 
Mad – carried away by intense anger or hatred
 
~ or ~
 
Mad – carried away by enthusiasm or desire
 
Similar to hysterical, at its core mad is about intense emotion – it’s just that one is positive and the other is negative. Mad has various meanings, and besides these two opposite emotions, many of the other definitions also contained a range of emotional words: gaiety, merriment, resentful, excitement, confusion, agitation, frantic, hilarious, impetuous, irrational, and so on. So people who are mad are definitely worked up in some way about something.
 
I’m mad about my dogs . . .
Chloe birthday
 
. . . but sometimes I’m mad at my dogs.
Bad Chloe
 
And then there was Mad About You . . .
Mad About You
 
. . . which was a show about a recently wed couple who were mad about each other, but got into plenty of sitcom squabbles that left them mad at each other.
 
Lisa was mad about the portrait Leonardo painted of her.
 
Is Lisa pissed off because she wanted him to show off her pearly whites or is she thrilled because she knows the way he painted her smile will ensure her fame for at least 500 years?
Mona Lisa
 
Are you familiar with contronyms? Can you think of any other ‘M’ contronyms? How Marvelous does Molly look with her letter M?

Jocelyn Rish

Jocelyn Rish is a writer and filmmaker who never imagined her cheeky sense of humor would lead to a book about animal butts. When she's not researching fanny facts, she tutors kids to help them discover the magic of reading. Jocelyn has won numerous awards for her short stories, screenplays, short films, and novels and lives in South Carolina with her booty-ful dogs.