Re: Two different opposites

On Tuesday, January 13, 2004, at 01:37 AM, Tristan McLeay wrote:

> On Mon, 12 Jan 2004, Joe wrote:
[snip]

> For instance, we have 'welcome' 'unwelcome', and 'neither welcome nor
>> unwelcome'.  I suggest a new prefix 'en-'. For instance 'enfast' means
>> 'not fast', but 'unfast' means 'slow'.
>
> Well, en- already has a meaning so I'm not sure that that's such a good
> idea,
You're being polite.  en- is a very bad idea if you want to create a new
English prefix with the idea of "not".  As Tristan says, en- already exists
as a prefix in English with the meanings:
- in, into
- cause to be
-intensive

> and in-'s already overloaded (Latin for both un- and en- making for
> the obvious fun with inflammible).
Yep - and en- would be similarly overloaded if it acquired a negative
meaning.

> (Personally, enfast to
> me sound like you're making something fast, though, perhaps, that implies
> that it's not yet fast.)
Is that 'fast' in the sense of "firm, fixed" or of "quick, rapid"? (I
assume
not the sense "refrain from food")

If I cam across the word 'enfast', I'd assume it was a quaint archaic or
dialect
word meaning "to fasten", i.e. to cause something to be fixed.
Ray
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