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stranger
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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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----please, draw me a sheep----
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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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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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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
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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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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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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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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
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nothing that's valid, anyway...
praps not in a medical sense.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Hey, guess what I just found out? Onelook now has Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary as a choice; I tried it, and it will actually let you see the word in the Visual Thesaurus. (I don't subscribe, so all my other efforts have failed since it stopped being free.)
I wasn't impressed, though, that the Cambridge didn't give the origin for valid, so I went to AHD, which offered:
ADJECTIVE:
1. Well grounded; just: a valid objection.
2. Producing the desired results; efficacious: valid methods.
3. Having legal force; effective or binding: a valid title.
4. Logic
a. Containing premises from which the conclusion may logically be derived: a valid argument.
b. Correctly inferred or deduced from a premise: a valid conclusion.
5. Archaic Of sound health; robust.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ETYMOLOGY:
French valide, from Old French, from Latin validus, strong, from valre, to be strong; see wal- in Indo-European roots
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It should be noted that the prefix dis- is not always a negating prefix. In particular, the dis- of disgruntled is not negating, it is intensive. Another case of dis- being used as an intensive is in the word disannul. YCLIU.
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the prefix dis- is not always a negating prefix
This illustrates how many normative grammarians are misled by extra-linguistic considerations into manhandling the language. The notion that language must be consistent in the distribution of its vocabulary. This leads to concerns such as that in this thread. That the form disgruntled lacks a positive without the prefix. One can also note that the past participle lacks a verb: gruntelen 'to grunt (frequently)' which dropped out of the language during the Middle English period.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Then the tall ship stranded on the hapless coast of lost positives
tangle ; mid-14c., nasalized variant of tagilen "to involve in a difficult situation, entangle," from a Scandinavian source (cf. dialectal Swed. taggla "to disorder," O.N. þongull "seaweed").
entangle; early 15c., from en- (1) + tangle. Related: Entangled; entangling.
disentangle; 1590s; see dis- + entangle. Related: Disentangled; disentangling.
'tangle' 'entangle' 'disentangle'
How should I see 'disentangle'? As positive or as nagative?
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Carpal Tunnel
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nagative I love it! And I am NOT going to tell Hubby.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Hmm.., does this typo have some meaning I don't know of?
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old hand
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old hand
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verb (used without object)
to find fault or complain in an irritating, wearisome, or relentless manner (often fol. by at ): If they start nagging at each other, I'm going home.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Yes; a nagging wife is a stereotype, unfortunately based all too often on truth. But it's not our fault: you men simply refuse to mature! Pick up after your danged selves! Put your dirty clothes in the hamper! Don't eat like a p... uh,...oops! 
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Carpal Tunnel
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you men simply refuse to mature!
You talkin' t'me?
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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When a man marries a woman he hopes she'll never change, but she always does. When a woman marries a man she hopes he'll change, but never does.
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formerly known as etaoin...
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----please, draw me a sheep----
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