Re: Two different opposites

Ray Brown wrote:

> 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.


Heh, yes.  I wasn't really thinking realistically, there.  Still, the
concept's interesting.

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