Yesterday's post included the following description of an article about alleged misconduct by a company's CEO:
The article questioned the company's culture: it sanctioned a "best legs" contest for female employees, few women served in high-level positions, and no women served on the board of directors. While one director would complain that the CEO "can't keep it in his pants," the members of the board of directors admitted in depositions that they never sanctioned the CEO for his alleged conduct.
A reader wrote to point out the opposing meanings of "sanctioned" in the post. "Sanctioned" in the first sentence is being used to mean permitted or authorized while "sanctioned" in the second sentence means penalized.