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Comments on Friday 22 September 2006:
A vaguely amusing game, inspired by annoyance at the word 'jealous' having at least three very distinct meanings which are easily confused even in context (being as best as I can distinguish them, 'possessive', 'envious' and 'afraid').

The game might be called Antosyns or Synonants. The goal is to get from a target word to one of its antonyms in as few synonym-steps as you can. For example, using thesaurus.com as the board, jealous has only one antonym, 'unconcerned'. Ignoring the fact of that being a really rubbish antonym for jealous, five minutes of poking found the path "jealous -> demanding -> tough -> callous -> unconcerned".

For multi-player play, I would suggest the rules be a time limit, and whoever calls the shortest number of steps first wins when they show their path, at timeout or when all players agree no shorter route will be found, whichever comes first. All players playing on the same word, of course; optional whether they must also play to the same antonym, or have a choice when there are more than one antonym available.

The conclusion to draw from the game is that all words mean the same, and this is why communication is a stupid mess and we need a constructed language. Is it possible to construct a usable language that won't blur words within six degrees? [05:05]

Squander Two
One of the many things about which I tend to be annoyingly pedantic is that "jealous" does not mean "envious". Jealousy is when you are afraid of someone taking something from you; envy is when you want what someone else has.

Of course, everyone uses "jealous" to mean "envious" anyway. Perhaps you could cut the number of meanings of "jealous" down from two to three, at least in your vicinity, by slapping people hard when they misuse it.

RavenBlack
But common usage defines words; dictionaries follow common usage; dictionaries say jealous does mean envious.
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