I love the prefix ‘anti’. These first two syllables of such a prefixed word just sets up you for contradiction and controversy. Without even thinking about it you know that the rest of word is conditional but conditional on what? Sometimes I wonder if ‘anti’ was an afterthought. At the office of the supreme lexicographic beings, I imagine them deciding to put, say, ‘bacterial’, in the dictionary and then buggering off for a long lunch to congratulate themselves on a good morning’s work.

At 3.30pm, after the third round of cocktails, one of them goes, “Crap, we forgot the opposite to bacterial”

“Don’t worry.” says a second, “we’ll just throw ‘anti’ on the beginning a call it good. Another Martini anyone?”

Then there are the ‘anti’ words that refuse to have their prefix lopped off as a cheap way to discover their antonyms. Antithetical is one of them. We can only deduce that the supreme lexicographers created that word on purpose one Tuesday morning:

“Look here, we have a whole bunch of people who, despite their god being the same just and virtuous god as the fellow down the road, insist on laying waste to their neighbors anyway. Personally, I don’t care what they do to each other but what I do care about is that they don’t have a word for it.”

Later that afternoon, they decide to broaden the meaning but it can never shake the contradiction of religion. Later still, long after the supreme lexicographers had gone home for the night, those cheeky writers decide to have some fun and make it a rhetorical device of speech and literature. And then, much much later, so late that even the writers have packed it in and gone to bed, man lands on the moon proudly wielding the antithetical: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

So, that’s where we’re at right now. A collection of essays born of writers from around the world exploring antithesis through its religion, social conscience, humor and absurdity. A trivial collection of great importance.

Next issue: dally