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

Gnomon, Pheroneous,
As I remember my Beatrix Potter, the Tailor of Gloucester was "worn to a ravelling" which is hard to describe but very expressive.

OK - to me it expresses something which is insubstantial, frayed, weak and useless for it's purpose. But she puts it much better than I did.
cgB

Yeah,
She also wrote about some rabbit who was hooked on lettuce and almost overdosed. (Or should that be overdozed?) He used to steal to feed his habit.
No wonder the kids of today have problems, with him as a role model.

Yeah, but at least her animals are not cute.

The badger stinks and kills things, the fox stinks and kills things, the rats stink and kill things. None of this brambly hedge cr@p.

Yes it counts as he wrote it after James' accession, so Scotland was already British. (It _was_ before that if we're talking about the British Isles) Interestingly he seems to have meant "unravelled" when he wrote "ravelled".
Is this another instance of the rare flammable.inflammable,non-flammable progression?

I'm never sure how the rules apply to put dis- , un- , in- etc. infront of a word to (usually) reverse its meaning - any ideas ?
Should I be unsure, insure or dissure ?

This is going over my head somewhat.

Are you saying the situation became inflamed (or non-flamed) after the unravelling of the Scottish succession?

I have an instinct that words which originally came from latin take in-. Quite often they take in- in Latin too. Are there any rules about this 'Star?

How about some (unused, disused, nonused, inused) opposites for ...
dispute > pute == everything's hunky-dory
disaster > aster == everything's hunky-dory
distinctive > tinctive == everything looks the same

How about disenfranchised ? Does that make a double-negative ?

Got this quote from 'Sabrina the Teenage Witch' (which incidentally has some very sophisticated humour and word usage)
"Not using no double-negatives will be disallowed"

There's a word that totally lost the plot - "Take".

Overtake - To catch up with and/or pass
Undertake - To do something, or to bury people
Mistake - Something that is not right

Overtake -> Overtaken, Mistake -> Mistaken, Take - Took?
Sometimes I (un/anti/in/de)spair of ever learning my mother tongue

DJ - my sympathies !

There's also:
intake - the way in (usually) for airflows etc. (not the opposite of take)
partake - to join in
retake - do it again

doesn't ... take - taken ... work for you ?

Yes and no....

I seem to be OK with "had taken", "was taken"... but e.g. "I was overtaken by a red bus on my way into work today because I took the wrong turning."...and what of "partaken" - it would definitely have to be "partook" for me.

Sorry, Duncan. It's very easy to pontificate about english and then have an exception etc. pointed out - but then that's some of the magic on the language.

Going back to an earlier posting today, has anyone else got any knowledge of rules about the addition of in- non- dis- to produce negatives ? Can anyone think of differences between British English and the others flavours?

I've always found the prefix 'a' quite interesting. For instance asexual means non-sexual, apolitical means non political etc. But what about apathetic, which means something far different from pathetic.

Incidentally, unused means something has never been used whereas disused was once used but has not been used for sometime.

The language has got one hell of a bite ...
Can I say "I'm unused to public speaking" withou meaning I've never done it ?

I want to partake of the state of low dudgeon. Where is it? I thought that it might be in the US, but I may have mistook it for a location and been mistaken.
Beatrix Potter used ravel as a noun, probably meaning a thread, whereas it is given in dictionaries as a verb. I suspect that the usage was coloquial - they have some funny words in Cumbria.
I am sure that there is a word 'ravelin' - something to do with fortifications I seem to remember. And one of my favourite words - ravish - is this what people do at raves?

Good one, Andy, I think a- always means without, pathetic now has the same sense almost as apathetic, but perhaps once meant something like 'feeling' but maybe the prefix has a different sense with Greek as opposed to Latin words.

I vote for a whip-round, so that we can buy a big etymological dictionary. Please send all monies to K. (second thoughts, she'll spend it all on chocolates)

There's no mystery with overtake, undertake and mistake. They are all based on take and they all use the same forms of the word:

I overtake the bus
I overtook the bus
The bus was overtaken

I undertake the job
I undertook the job
The job was undertaken

I mistake the man for a mouse
I mistook the man for a mouse
The man was mistaken for a mouse

Of course, mistaken also means something else:

I was mistaken when I mistook the man for mouse.

Intake is a noun, not a verb, there is no "intaken" or "intook".
Out-take is a new noun, jokingly based on intake, which means a short piece of video footage removed from a recording because it contains a mistake.
Shitake is nothing to do with "taking the piss", it is a type of mushroom and is pronounce "she tacky" (I think).

Does Andy mean without ndy?

a does not always mean without. Only when it is used as a prefix to a word that already means something does it signify "without". So apathy is not exactly without pathy. It's more like "without sympathy".

Note that amoral does not mean the same as immoral. Something immoral is wrong because it goes against the normal standards of morals. Something amoral is totally outside of the standards of morals and can not be judged, as it contains no intention of good or evil. An example is a lion killing an antelope. This is not evil of the lion, as the lion has no sense of good and evil. It is an amoral action.

Take is an irregular verb. The principal parts are "I take I took I have taken" and the same for any other verbs based on take.
So, I partook of luncheon at an early hour today and I have seldom partaken of a more sumptious collation.

Negative prefixes are something I'm trying to write about for my students at the moment. Mostly you just have to learn them separately, One rule to be going on with is that in- before a p becomes im-
I may get back to you on this, but probably the thread will have galloped 300 postings by the time I manage it.

Precisely G,

amoral = without moral
atheist = without belief in God
alive = without life, hang on a minute!