h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You don't want to be a "has been" do you?

To late to worry about that

I don't think so - look at this! http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F128110?thread=403257

I can't seem to shake thinking about those orphaned negatives like un-couth, de-louse and dis-mantle. I keep meaning to create an entry and make a list. Today I thought of disallusion and delude and spent hours trying to think of any possible way to allusion somebody.

Yesterday I lost sleep over dis-appoint.

Maybe I'm just luding myself.

~jwf~

Traveller in Time recovering from a Dict crash (consistent syntax error)
"Yes, sure.
Whether deorphanating disallusions or adopting delousing, how come you sleep bad over playing with words?"

You sure that was disallusion, jwf, not disillusion?

I wonder whether it was a parable. Perhaps he was only alluding to an illusion.

Oh dear, Potholer, now you've sent me back to my dictionary.
(How were the caves in Mexico by the way ? Or did you miss that particular spelunkers' holiday? It sure put the collective Mexican nose out of joint to discover so many Brits trapped underground and then be told not to rescue them. Don't they have James Bond films in Mexico? Don't they know that Brits will go anywhere on HM Secret Servitude?)

Y'mean it's not disallusion? Have I really misspelled disillusion all these years? Am I really that deluded? Very confusing. Now I'm thinking about dissolve and whether it leads to dissolution. And if so, the root of dissolution is no solution, any more than an appointment is necessarily the positive opposite of a disappointment.

As for plaguesville's suggestion, I can safely say I've never even seen a pair-o-bulls. They tend to come at me out of the shoot one at a time.

peace
jwf

~jwf~ I really do think you should be spending more time away from that mercury pool of yours.

p.s. I like the disappointment one, must go find out how that came about!

Gusting sounds like it's meteorological. Then add dis and it's awful.
Display: Be serious?

De-frock is an example where we can imagine, perhaps even assume, that some sort of frocking has already taken place. One can hardly be defrocked if one has never been frocked.

But some examples like 'de-capitate' are pretty obviously a one way street and we somehow intuitively know that nothing less than a god would ever try to capitate, anything.

But mainly it seems there are many other negative or nullifying words which appear to have no positive root. De-spair, de-fenestrate, de-liver, de-tention and even de-tente (no matter how cordial ).

De-fend is peculiarly at odds with itself since fending is already a defensive manoeuvre.


~jwf~

"nothing less than a god would ever try to capitate, anything. "

Pretty close.

The Minister of Education has taken steps to capitate school children.
When that's been done, he hands over the appropriate amount of cash.

"it seems there are many other negative or nullifying words which appear to have no positive root. De-spair,"

Yeah, but not that one. "Spero" is Latin for "I hope". The infinitive may be "spere" but I won't bet on it.

~jwf~

Oh and here's another:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3609809.stm

(Anyone care to bet on redearrest?)

dearresting/dearrested It's to do with game/hunting/field sports. They have to let deer lie down for a bit to get their breath before they shoot them. It's very unsportsmanlike to shoot a panting doe. It's a very old version of the spelling which seems to have stayed only for this aspect of the "sport". That's dear-resting. They've used the term to do with the whole antiterrorist, now we hunt you now, we let them go, scenario.

*sorry about misplaced comma*

In that article, it referred to a 17 year-old *man*.

I thought that the media (well, some bits of it) usually slavishly followed the convention that any male of 18 years and over was referred to as a man, 16 and 17 were 'youths' and 15 and under were possibly 'teenagers' (although that applies up to 19 & 364 days at least when referring to footballers) or else 'boys'?

rt

"usually slavishly"

sorry

rt

They can use "man" if they intend to use the death penalty. As seen in the p'lice book of "How To Refer To Suspects If You Need Public Sympathy."

The media definition of man / teenager / youth / whatever is a very complex thing.
Normally, it seems to me, if the report is about something positive then the a 17//18/19 yr old male is a 'man', but if it is something negative then he is a 'youth' or 'teenager' or whatever.
However, I would guess that due to the current climate, the severity of the offence, and the establishment wanting to enforce how serious a problem terrorism is to us, this individual was called a man. After all, reporting a teenager being arrested for terrorism somehow doesn;t sound as serious.

Hmm, is this part of the inherent sexism of our language that the same doesn't apply to women? A 19 yr old woman is a 19 yr old woman it seems, regardless. She may occasionally be called a teenager, rarely a youth and never a girl. One term seems to fit all circumstances.

I know we all read and understand "youth", "teenager" and "juvenile" but I cannot imagine myself ever saying or writing these terms (juvenile as a noun that is)and I only use "adolescent" as part of an insult. Possibly it's because I'm so old myself?