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Synonym/antonym distance
My thing for today is a process for choosing a series of words where the first and last words are antonyms (they mean the opposite thing) and each word between them is a synonym (they have a similar meaning). The “distance” refers to how many synonyms you must choose before reaching the antonym. I’ve never heard of this before, so I’ll assume I’m inventing it here.
Without further ado, the synonym/antonym sequence for “dynamic” and “static” (s/a distance of 8):
- Dynamic
- Vital
- Essential
- Intrinsic
- Indelible
- Permanent
- Stable
- Static
I used the built-in Apple Dictionary program to choose these, but I’m assuming it would work similarly with other references. I’m curious which words might produce the shortest distances.
Last 5 posts by Dan Phiffer
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Wow, that is really cool. I think I have glimpsed a small piece of this while “thesaurus surfing” in word processors from time to time… but the idea of deliberately doing this is very intruiging!
It would be interesting to see more of these…
There’s a game designed around this concept in one of Piers Anthony’s _Apprentice Adept_ series novels, but I haven’t seen it anywhere else. I like the idea, and it also gave me total nostalgia for my teenage reading!!