Subject: Un-done

In the Tip for April 6, I wrote about a new meaning of unlike being used on Facebook, saying that while the use of the prefix un- to indicate a reversal was old, this new use was particularly odd because it meant “take back my action of indicating I like something,” which in turn represents an unusual use of like.

Another common use of un-, of course, is to indicate an opposite, not something to be reversed. Two Tip readers wrote about examples of this use.

One said,

Unlike, unfriend, unfollow, etc., remind me of George Orwell’s Newspeak, in which any word could be negatived by adding the prefix un- or strengthened by adding plus or doubleplus. Thus warm became “uncold,” bad became “ungood,” and something horrifically bad was “doubleplus ungood.” The ruling party elite had designed the new language to diminish the range of thought, in part by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum, the better to hold the masses under control.

And Douglas Starr, who gave me permission to use his name, wrote:

In the early days of the Associated Press—and I assume other newswire services—sending news stories across the ocean by cable required payment by the word.

So, to save words—and money—and to prevent omitting not from stories, the AP combined words, and the rewrite desk in New York made the sentences read normally. It was like this. Instead of “does not have”: “unhas.” Instead of “does not know”: “unknows.” And “unwants,” “unplans,” “unwent,” “unsaid,” and so on.

Now that was something I unknew.

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Tags: English usage, Vocabulary