For instance "seed" means either to sew 'em or remove 'em. I've often wondered whether your friendly local distributor of "seeded" grapes isn't hoping the potential misunderstanding might get him a slight boost in sales
Stakeholder is one that gets bandied around a lot at my office. Usually it seems to mean anyone who can derail the project, but it's never clear who is a stakeholder and who isn't, although I reckon a stakeholder always adds more work than he contributes. I was amused to find that Wiktionary rates it as a contronym now, since its original meaning was someone who held the stakes of a bet (in escrow) and so in a sense held no interest or control over the outcome - the opposite of what it means now.
I am generally a descriptivist, but when a word has two opposite meanings, I stop using it. The ultimate example is factoid: when coined, it meant something that seems plausible but is not a fact (the suffix -oid denoting looks like but isn't, as in asteroid or android for star-like rock or man-like machine respectively) but nowadays it generally means 'little fact'. So when someone says 'that's a neat little factoid' the statement is utterly ambiguous, though at least the speaker has all their bases covered.
Stumble It!
Tweet This
Bookmark on Delicious
Share on Facebook
Share on MySpace