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Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475 |
Indeclinables? Or inflectious?
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
how's about something in Latin, with a Greek prefix? 
formerly known as etaoin...
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Posts: 1,819
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Well this is a very unique discussion! *ducks and runs*
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Joined: Jul 2004
Posts: 72
journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Jul 2004
Posts: 72 |
Ah, yes, I knew this was sounding familiar.
In an April discussion, Alex said:
... "largely silenced" is a bit like "mostly a virgin" or "a little bit pregnant."
I remembered the pregnant part. How could I forget virginity?
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
So did we find a way to describe these words back then?
I like linguistic absolutes but that concept could apply to more than this situation wouldn't say.
Welcome Shellb !! It's nice to see new folks aBoard.
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
Jackie, I believe, has hit on the answer. If Shelby is talking about what I think he is, it's words denoting a quality which, by its nature, does not admit of the comparative or superlative degree. One does not speak, except facetiously, of someone being very pregnant or very dead -- you're either pregnant or dead or you're not. Same goes for "the most pregnant" or "the deadest". Well, you might use 'dead' in a figurative sense, like "Smallburg is the deadest town I've ever spent time in" or something like that, but not in the literal sense.
Two of my favorite bugboos, which fall into this category, are 'unique' and 'perfect'. I don't care what those idiots say on QVC etc., something can't be very unique [shudder]. Something is either unique or it isn't; this is implied in the meaning of the word. Same goes for 'perfect' notwithstanding the preamble to the U.S. Constitution.
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Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 19
stranger
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stranger
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 19 |
Bobyoungbalt has hit the nail on the head. Words like full, empty, pregnant etc full under a classification such as noun, verb etc and that's what i am trying in earnest to find out. It was told to me once and the fact that i can;t remember is making me tear out my hair.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
something can't be very unique [shudder]
Everybody's unique and, while I may be more unique than many I don't think there's any question that musick is the most unique of all or us.
And, since nobody's perfect we can have degrees of proximity to perfectness and there's no reason to have the word if we can't use it to express degrees of closeness to Platonic perfection.
Pblblblblbrrrrt
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Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475 |
Unfortunately that's not how language works. Folks the world over tend to pile up modifiers adding more and more to a word, etc. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, just a Canutian task to rail against it. I posted the earliest example of very unique that I could find on my blog. It occurs in Plautus. http://www.bisso.com/ujg_archives/000315.html
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Posts: 133
member
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member
Joined: Mar 2004
Posts: 133 |
Everyone is unique but what a lot we have in common! And let me assure you, gentlemen, that at eight months a woman feels far more pregnant than at two months--a cup may be half full, half empty, too full to handlewithout spilling--and in my perhaps unusual but surely not unique opinion, some canned or over-processed meats seem very dead.
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