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stranger
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OP
stranger
Joined: Dec 2010
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Firstly, Hello. I enjoy much of this forum, so I have joined.
Secondly, is there a term for a word where a negative exists but the opposite doesn't, or at least is not in common use.
For example: "unkempt" I've never heard anyone described as "kempt" even though it may well exist.
Any other examples welcome. I have a list somewhere on my PC.
Best regards to all from Yorkshire
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2008
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----please, draw me a sheep----
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Joined: Jun 2006
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Welcome Sunsh49. Maybe you should take a look at this: > > kempt They may exist though; I would not know a term but someone might.
Last edited by BranShea; 12/15/10 10:31 PM.
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stranger
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stranger
Joined: Dec 2010
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Well yes, I did say it may well exist, but it's not a word I ever recall seeing, much less hearing.
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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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this may be of some interest, regarding lost positives; it's from a mailing I sent to my subs. list on 04/07/09.. the worthless word for the day is: sheveled
[by shortening] (also shevelled)
rare, archaic : disheveled
"He bowed his tall white head into my shevelled hair."
- Richard Blackmore, Erema (1877)
"After the prisoner was delivered to Lexington the
next day in sheveled and humbled state, the posse was
dismissed..."
- Reese Prescott, The Rockbridge County Gazette,
June 28, 1904
(but)
"Is sheveled the opposite of disheveled? Recreational
linguists call these words lost positives."
- Charles Elster, What in the Word? (2005)
"She was a descript person, a woman in a state of
total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled,
and she moved in a gainly way."
- Jack Winter; The New Yorker, 25 July 1994
___
you never know how a prefix is going to effect things;
some expect that sheveled existed as a positive form
(as happened with couth and kempt), but in this case
the word was formed (as per OED) by aphesis.
this week: lost positives, or not
here's a link to the entire content of the Jack Winter citation link
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addict
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addict
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 655 |
A friend and I went through a period of describing ourselves as "sheveled and gruntled," which I mention just to toss another lost negative into this conversation. Was there a time when a contented individual was said to be gruntled?
"I don't know which is worse: ignorance or apathy. And, frankly, I don't care." - Anonymous
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addict
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addict
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Another overly-discovered lost negative is "ert." It was used in the movie, "Private Benjamin," and I've heard it elsewhere, too. A man who respects and admires women is never called a "gynist," and one who is functioning with all faculties intact is never called "capacitated." Unafflicted people are not blessed with muscular trophy; in fact, medicine offers a windfall of negative words, all of whose opposites are "healthy," since many pathologies are named for the malfunctioning of some system, part or organ.
"I don't know which is worse: ignorance or apathy. And, frankly, I don't care." - Anonymous
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Good topic Sunsh
...and Beck, you are so right, so many negatives in medicine... what about the word invalid> I can't think of positive for that one.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Good topic Sunsh
...and Beck, you are so right, so many negatives in medicine... what about the word invalid> I can't think of positive for that one. nothing that's valid, anyway... ;¬ )
formerly known as etaoin...
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Dec 2006
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nothing that's valid, anyway...
praps not in a medical sense.
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