Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

The phrase "waterboarding quickly unloosed the tongues of hard-core terrorists" gave me a start. Didn't the writer mean to say that waterboarding *loosed* their tongues, i.e., made them more talkative? Checking in a dictionary,

unloose (vt) = to make or set loose; loosen, release, undo, etc. Also "unloosen".

 loose (vt) = to make loose, etc. Also "loosen".

So we have two words that look like they should have opposite meanings (like "tie" and "untie" do) but have the same meaning. Are their any more word-pairs like this?

Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY)

Note from KBJ: "Flammable" and "inflammable."