Heterological

“Now, out! Come on, get up, you’ll be late otherwise!” it roared into her ear. Slowly, Mira recognized the outline of her brother Felix, who was leaning over her. “How can you be such a sleepyhead!” , he said, now a bit calmer, because he noticed that Mira was slowly waking up. Felix was a bit smaller for his age, but a very cheeky boy with freckles on his face. He was younger than his sister, at 14 years old. “Is it already so late?” , Mira asked. “I had a nightmare again.” “I almost thought that.” , Felix answered. “Why, what do you know?” , Mira questioned him and looked at him in surprise. “If someone is tossing and turning like that in bed, something is wrong. Come on, no time for long talk, get up, or we’ll miss the bus!” Meanwhile, he pulled the blanket away and pinched Mira in the waist. Mira squealed and jumped out of bed. Mira could be fast when it mattered, and it didn’t take long before she ran to the kitchen with her school bag, grabbed a sandwich, and marched on to the front door. “Where are you, Felix? We’re going to miss the bus!”, she shouted.Felix jumped down the stairs, and then they raced to the bus stop, which was only 200 meters away. The bus wasn’t in sight yet, but they ran anyway. They had been doing this every morning lately, simply because it was fun for them. “First,” Felix shouted with joy as he reached the bus stop pole first. Only shortly afterwards, but still after Felix, Mira reached the pole. She looked exhausted. “What’s wrong with you, little sister? Are the nightmares affecting your running ability, or is there another maths test coming up?” Right, Mira hadn’t thought about that at all previously. Next week, there was actually a maths test on the schedule, and today she planned to meet her friend Tina after school to study. She had immediately forgotten that she lost the race because she was only thinking about school, but Felix was happy the whole day, because it was the first time he was faster than Mira.

Mira liked going to school, except for maths class. The maths teacher, Mr. Friedhardt, was always mean to her. She wasn’t even the worst in the class. Still, he always had to make fun of her mistakes. Her best friend Tina suspected that he must have once been in love with a girl who looked like Mira and had turned him down. What made Mira even sadder was that some kids in her class laughed when he made fun of her. Of course, not Tina and her best friends. Today, fortunately, the maths class was cancelled, so the school day went quite well. Even the studying with Tina was pleasant, and Mira had the impression that she was making progress. After dinner, Mira sat down at her desk and replied to a letter she had received from her friend Ulla. Then she looked up the meaning of heterological in the Brockhaus encyclopedia. Where had she heard that word before? She couldn’t remember, but she wanted to know what it meant:

An adjective is heterological, if it is not what it means. Examples are the adjectives long, two-syllable, French. Long is a short word, not a long word. Two-syllable is a four-syllable word, not a two-syllable word. French is an English word, not a French word.

Autological adjectives are those that mean exactly what they are. Examples are the adjectives short, four-syllables, English. Short is a short word. Four-syllable is a four-syllable word. English is an English word.

Mira understood what she had just read and wanted to test if she could decide for herself whether an adjective was autological or heterological. So, what about the adjective autological? Autological was itself what it meant. So, autological was autological. What about the adjective heterological? Was it autological or heterological? If heterological were heterological, then it would not mean what it meant by definition. But that was exactly what heterological meant, that it did not mean what it was. So, heterological would be autological, which would be a contradiction. If heterological were autological, then heterological would be what it meant, so it would be heterological. This also led to another contradiction. One could really get a knot in their brain! So, heterological belonged to neither of the two classes. Homological, on the other hand, was clearly homological. Mira thought of more adjectives to see which class they belonged to. Whatever came to her mind, they were all words that were not what they meant. How could a word be smart, empty, faithful, thirsty, or free? For a poet, that might be possible, but for Mira, these words were heterological. Some might find the word funny funny or the word nice nice, but for Mira, these words were also heterological. The word new is not new, the word quiet is not quiet. For homological words, only separable and flawless came to her mind. The classification into these two classes was an interesting idea by Grelling, Mira thought, although the word heterological did not belong to either of the two classes. And now she remembered her dream with the story of the trial, which also led to a contradiction, just like with the adjective heterological. All this thinking made Mira very tired, as she had not been sleeping well lately due to her many nightmares. She wanted to read the book that the German teacher had assigned to the class, but Mira fell asleep after just a few lines.