Subject: re : 6 . 293 words that are their own opposites

sue morrish 's posting on shame in australian reminded me of a weird fact about the same word in south african english , according to some sa friends . this is that " shame ! " is used as an exclamation of joy by , for example , old ladies seeing a newborn baby or a fluffy animal . the supposed explanation is that " shame ! " as an exclamation of disapproval became an exclamation of sympathy for somebody who has been ill-treated ( so far , this parallels a shift that i ' m familiar with too ) . it then bleached out still further in sa to a mere " back channel utterance " , indicating that the listener was still paying ( sympathetic ) attention , and then became a positive expression of pleasure . can anybody confirm either the data or the explanation ? btw , wrt benji wald 's posting , i understood the origin of a ' lucus a non lucendo ' to be st isidore of seville 's _ origines sive etymologiae _ ( 7th c ) - according to father dinneen 's book on the history of linguistics i think . john t waterman in his little book perspectives on linguistics ( 1963 ) gives another example from the same source : bellum ( war ) from bellus ( beautiful ) , because war is far from beautiful ! regards , paul werth
