Such odd thoughts can come, as you lie awaiting sleep to take you. Last night I thought of the word stir, with 'un' in front of it. IS there anything, once stirred, that can be unstirred? Are there any other words, that, if you put 'un' on the front, the action cannot be undone?

it becomes an issue of chronology, I think. something could be unstirred prior to being stirred, but not after.
one's hair could be kempt after being unkempt.

IS there anything, once stirred, that can be unstirred?

Oil and vinegar.

entropy and chaos. once stirred things tend to remain stirred-- messes tend to remain once made unless there is an effort to unmess them...(especially on a cosmic level!) billions and billions of dollars worth of gold can be found in the salt waters of the ocean- but they are so diffused and hard to extract its not currently feasible to do so...

eventually, everything will be dust, with a small percentage of all the valualbe minerals and compound diffused through out the universe...

Oil and vinegar. Not if you think of unstirring as a concrete action, as I was. Letting things sit is not, in my mind, the equivalent of unstirring.

Is there anything, once stirred, that can be unstirred?

A vodka martini.

But you can stir it again.

Not if you think of unstirring as a concrete action, as I was.

You unstir your way, I'll unstir mine.

> Not if you think of unstirring as a concrete action,


Sheesh! If anybody thinks unstirring a martini is difficult, why would they ever want to unstir concrete?

I unstir my martinis the old fashioned way.

As a martin i unstir to Beethoven's 9th. Works every single time for me.

the old fashioned way.

Well, that's not very cosmopolitan, is it.


~~~
and happy Beethoven's birthday, Max!

Restating the obvious--forgive me, Faldage:

I think Faldage's example of unstirring of oil and vinegar is excellent because we do stir oil and vinegar to get the ingredients side by side essentially for the sake of taste and appearance--at least for those who like to stir rather than pour their oil and vinegar separately.

But after stirring, those two ingredients become unstirred--visibly separated again--even though they were never actually combined in the way eggs, flour and milk would have been combined.

I found Faldage's immediate response to Jackie's question of could things become unstirred to be right on the money.

On another track:

People can become unstirred. Think of those who once stirred our emotions who have fallen from grace. We have become, so to speak, unstirred by their presences.

the old fashioned way.

Well, that's not very cosmopolitan, is it.

you're so (w)rye...

Oh, Wordwind, how delighted I am that you saw this! All right--having re-read my original question, I have to concede the point. Yes, things can become unstirred. What I should have asked was, is there something that you can unstir--not 'cause to become unstirred'--, once you have stirred it? You also picked up on my thought that it doesn't necessarily have to apply to concoctions; you can stir relationships up, too, esp. when you play the game that's called "Let's You and Him Fight". (Meaning, you stay out of the discord while encouraging it between others.)

Sand of two distinct grain sizes. Stir them up and then run them through a sieve that only allows the smaller grained sand to go through.

Or large beads and small beads. once you stir them vigorously to stir them up you can at least partially unstir them by stirring very gently and vibrating the bowl so that the large (esp. if lighter) ones rise to the top!!!!

I don't think I would equate running them through a sieve as the equivalent of unstirring, unless they had been put through the sieve to get "stirred" first. But--I can buy the bead idea. Cool, Zed! Yes--I think you could start with a bowl of beads that had a layer of small ones on the bottom and large ones on top, stir them a few times to where they were intermixed, then "unstir" as you said, until they were back the way they started. Theoretically, it ought to work, I think. Thanks!

Edit: Faldage, I take it back; I think I was being too narrow-minded, esp. re: a word that doesn't exist!

well Jackie, we are getting into 'what do you mean by stir'?

i guess i read it as emulify and others read it as combine

you can 'stir' chocolate into milk, and let it 'sit' and most of the chocolate settles out.. it 'unstirs' but if you put a drop of india ink into a glass of water, it doesn't even need to be stirred--let it sit, and the ink diffused through all of the water..

and if you take the vinegar and oil, and add a bit of egg yolk (a more complex fat than oil,) and mix the three together, and you end up with mayonaisse-- which won't 'unstir'...

or is it more accurate to say that no matter how much you aggitate them, you really can't stir oil and vinegar together.. they always remain seperate-- and all we see is 'remnants' or after effects of the aggitation?

Good point, Helen. I didn't have anything in particular in mind; it was just a weird thought, and I couldn't think of anything right off the bat that could be 'unstirred'.

I can think of actors who have stirred me in one movie and unstirred me in another but we aren't talking emulsify here.

OneLook's word today is imbue. does one unimbue, or disimbue?

does one unimbue, or disimbue? Neither. Just use bleach!