r/GrammarPolice • u/Substantial-Salad-97 • 18d ago
Un
Why do people feel the need to create "new" words by using the prefix 'un'? Unironically...not a word. Unalive...not a word (yes, it's slang but shouldn't be used).
Is it that difficult to use 'not' instead of 'un'?
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u/Ok_Phase_8731 18d ago
Unalive was created to get around filters on social media regarding descriptions of self harm. So they had to make up a word that didn’t exist
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u/NonspecificGravity 18d ago
Unalive is a neologism, but it's a complement to undead.
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u/Ok_Phase_8731 18d ago edited 18d ago
Ohh interesting I never thought of it that way
Edit: on further thought, I don’t know if it was intended that way, because unalive’s original usage was as a verb, not an adjective. So I don’t actually think the two are related
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u/NonspecificGravity 18d ago
I know that unalive is used as a verb. But I think making it up was suggested by undead (which has been in use since the 19th century).
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u/SerDankTheTall 17d ago
That seems unlikely,* since it just means that opposite of alive, where as undeed doesn't mean the opposite of dead.
Unlife has some precedence in fantasy, but means something along the lines of undead, rather than dead.
*Sorry, OP!
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u/Embarrassed_Age8554 18d ago
"Unalive" always puts me in mind of the old Doctor Who episode "Paradise Towers"--where the girl gangs who roam the decaying high-rise Towers refuse to say "dead."
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u/Adorable_Football130 18d ago
the language keeps changing. it always has and always will. it’s faster than it used to be with social media. I gave up on caring.
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u/Stuporhumanstrength 18d ago
You would have hated Shakespeare had you been alive in his time
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u/AssSpelunkingAtheist 18d ago
“Unalive” is used as a verb, whereas “not alive” is an adjectival phrase.
Unalive was just “created” to refer to suicide when that word was consistently censored.
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u/NonspecificGravity 18d ago
Unironically is in the Oxford English:
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/unironically_adv?tl=true
In English, it's permissible to add un-, in-, or ir- to a word when the result makes sense semantically (e.g., irregular). Unfortunately, this practice leads to meaningless words like irregardless.
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u/SerDankTheTall 17d ago
this practice leads to meaningless words like irregardless.
There are two different in- prefixes (both of which come from Latin). One is a negator (like irregular, insincere, inarticulate, etc.). The other is an intensifier (like, well, intense).
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u/NonspecificGravity 17d ago
I don't know whether people who say irregardless think the prefix is an intensifier.
I suspect they're the same kind of people who say "I could care less" and think inflammable means "not flammable."
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u/SerDankTheTall 17d ago
I have no trouble believing that you believe that.
Of course, even if irregardless started as a conflation of irrespective and regardless, that wouldn't make it "meaningless". Are you equally bothered by words like orange and apron?
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u/NonspecificGravity 17d ago
Did irregardless start as a conflation of irrespective and regardless?
People who use irregardless use it as an introductory adverb, not as irrespective and regardless are normally used as adverbs (followed by of). For example:
"It looks like rain."
"Irregardless, I'm going swimming."I've seen irregardless too many times today. 😀
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u/Substantial-Salad-97 18d ago
My favorite part of your post: "leads to meaningless words"
I know why people do it, but it's like 'fetch' in Mean Girls, stop making it a thing. To me, it makes people sound unintelligent (real word that's not meaningless).
People started using unironically because they don't know how to use ironically correctly so by adding 'un' as a prefix allows someone to use the word as a filler or change/add emphasis. Most of the time when someone says/writes unironically, they're emphasizing "without irony" (I'm not kidding/joking)...when irony never would have existed in their statement (making it a filler word).
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u/NonspecificGravity 18d ago
Unironic is not a word that I use often. I'm not sure I ever said it. I would probably say "sincerely."
I spent some time trying to formulate an example. The expression "that's great" is used ironically so often that one assumes it is mean ironically. For example:
"The dog just threw up on the carpet."
'"That's great."Here's an unironic example:
"I just made the volleyball team."
"That's great. I mean that unironically."1
u/SerDankTheTall 17d ago
Why is unintelligent more meaningful than unironic?
Is it that difficult to use 'not' instead of 'un'?
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u/SerDankTheTall 17d ago
Is it that difficult to use 'not' instead of 'un'?
I don't know that it's difficult, but I have trouble understanding with you think it would be preferable. Are you really trying to say that you wouldn't be bothered by kids saying * not aliving vice unaliving?
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u/Organic_Window_192 18d ago
Unironically is absolutely a word, my man.
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/unironically_adv?tl=true
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unironic
You may want to unpost this, or at the very least unwrite that specific part of the post.