A California caller is puzzled as to why the prefix un- seems to function in two entirely different ways in the terms undone and unmarried. This is part of a complete episode.
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A California caller is puzzled as to why the prefix un- seems to function in two entirely different ways in the terms undone and unmarried. This is part of a complete episode.
Unparalleled misalignments are pairs of phrases in which the words in one phrase are each synonyms of the words in the other, but the phrases themselves mean different things. For example, the phrase blanket statement can be paired with cover story...
Jameela in Charlotte, North Carolina, says her family refers to their television’s remote control as the clicker, but her friends insist on calling it the remote. These devices go by other names as well, including doofer, flicker, zapper, and...
The roots of this way of using the prefix “un-” seem to go back to Germanic and Latin languages. The Dutch translation of the word “unthaw” is “ontdooien” but the prefix “ont-” has a double meaning in Dutch. It can mean “not”, like the English “un-” as well as “to initiate an action” which is similar to the English prefixes “in-” and “en-” as used in “inflame”, “inquire”, “enlighten” and maybe also the “a” in “awake”, “arise”.
There are several other Dutch, German and French words in which the prefixes “ont/ent/en” are still used to indicate the initiation of an action:
– ontbijten (Dutch for to have breakfast): literally “start to bite”
– ontvlammen (Dutch), entflammen (German), enflammer (French): to inflame
– ontbranden (Dutch), entbrennen (German): to ignite
– ontstaan (Dutch), entstehen (German): to arise. Literally “to initiate to stand”
– ontsteken (Dutch): to enkindle
– ontwaken (Dutch): to awake