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Comment by argomo | Hacker News Reader

Give/take duality is significant in the study of proto-indo/european language. IIRC, some root words took opposite meanings in their descendent languages. Some have gone so far as to speculate that this suggests reciprocality was an important culture expectation around gift-giving in PIE society.

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In New Zealand 'borrow' can be used to mean lend (transitively).

'I will borrow you that book' means I will lend it to you, just to give an example of a word changing to its opposite meaning.

I'm in New Zealand and I've never heard that; I feel like I might have heard it somewhere when I lived in England though. There are definitely oddities in NZ though; the NZ press uses the word "trespass" in a very strange way that seems to be somehow backwards: https://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/126753711/timaru-...

One I've noticed that is US vs UK/NZ/AU/...: "bring him with you" vs "take him with you", which has a directional component in British usage that I can't quite explain (away from the speaker maybe?) that the Americans don't do.

“A woman who was trespassed by two Timaru supermarkets for failing to comply with mandatory mask wearing rules, …”

I’m Australian (NZ-adjacent) and have no idea what that means.

From a nearby reply there is a clue that it's a new Americanism. I have to resist the urge to send a complaint... I'm not ready to become an old geezer who complains about things changing. But I admit that I grit my teeth when people talk about their 'gas bill' and I genuinely don't know whether they're talking about petrol or heating gas, or say "gotten" instead of "got", etc etc; there's no way to say "but we're supposed to use British words here" without sounding like an arse...

French has the directional component specifically for people (amener vs emmener) which could have influenced British English like many other words and phrasings, or it could have just been lost/simplified in American English.

I've heard trespass used that way in the US (prosecute for trespassing) by police officers. It surprised me, but was perfectly clear in context.

I have never seen it used the way it's used in the article.

Borrow is used like this some times in working class England too. But this form is frowned upon in more ‘educated’ circles.

It's quite often used this way in Wales. It makes a lot more sense when you realise that borrow and lend both translate to "benthyg" in Welsh.

In the U.S. South, "learn" can mean "teach", as in: "I'm gonna learn you some manners, young man!"

Same in Dutch. 'Ik leen geld van de bank. De bank leent geld aan mij.'

Also super common in northern Wisconsin

Perhaps because of the German influence?

Anecdotally, today in Germany, it’s really tricky for Germans with a very strong grasp of English to distinguish between ‘borrow’ and ‘lend’.

I'm a Kiwi. I've never heard it used like that?

Rural South Island. I should have said I don't think it is at all common here. Perhaps it is just locally picked up from some Brits.

likewise.

Borrow me your book quite common in Nigeria also

Spanish as well.

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