Why is "happy" the only emotion that can be "un"?

Me, on the other hand, I’m uncertain.

Maybe the distinction you’re insisting on should concern me.

But, as it happens, I’m unconcerned.

Seems the OP is not easily bunked.

Maybe they should be more chalant about it?

Since language is largely imponderable, while GQ is for ponderables, let’s move this to IMHO.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

Unangry.

Humorous essay that drops the negative prefixes common on many words.

Color me impressed.

It’s a criminatory practice.

I opened the thread to post counterexamples, but I am unsurprised that others have beaten me to it.

Well, you sure as heck weren’t going to be unbalanced.

A similar reason to why you never hear about a person who’s going to pend some money, only spend it - namely, that “dis-” (and “ex-” and “s-” and whatever other variants) don’t always mean “negative/opposite”. Sometimes they mean “outwards/away/apart” or “lack of”, or even it seems “excessively/extremely” as in disgruntled, which seems originally to have meant “grunting/complaining a lot”. (“Spend” is a short form of dispend, where pend = weigh, and dis = outwards, weighing your gold out to someone. Or maybe short for expend, doesn’t matter, SSDP.)

etymonline.com sure is a fun place. :wink:

Kitchen counter, lunch counter, candy counter, bean counter, game counter, shoe counter… :slight_smile:

Unloved?

Is Annie unsatisfied with these responses? I’d probably be unappreciative and ungrateful if people kept pointing out counterexamples.

I had a great aunt who got derwhelmed in Berlin in the 1960s. Terrible business.

I am nonplussed.

(Which is of course far worse than being nonminussed.)