BlogFriday: Disbelief
I need a little inspiration around here, so I’m going to participate in BlogFriday for awhile. In case you’re an unpaticipatory blog reader and didn’t click on that link, BlogFriday is a site that produces a new inspiration word each Friday at midnight. Bloggers can write a post inspired by the word and link to their post from the website. Since this week’s word has been up since last Friday, I figured I better do this before the new word is posted at midnight.
The word is ‘disbelief.’ Instead of writing about something that caused or may cause disbelief in myself or others, I’m going to try to disect the word a little. See, it’s the whole prefix/suffix business that gets me. I realize English is derived from many other languages and that’s probably why we have so many different prefixes to negate words, but if I was a professional linguist, I’d look into this. See about getting it changed. But since I’m not, I’ll just wonder why.
Why is it disbelief, but unbelievable? Why not disbelievable? Or unbelief?
And this isn’t the only place this happens. Take the word ‘comfort.’ Last night I was laying on the couch watching The Office, and during a commercial Brad came over and squished in behind me. Sometimes he’s cute and cuddly like that. We don’t have a big couch and he’s a tall guy and I’ve got curves, so we don’t exactly fit comfortably that way. Once we got settled, he still seemed to be awfully distorted, so I asked him, Are you discomfortable? As in, are you experiencing any discomfort right now? And other than the fact that I made the word up, it didn’t seem wrong.
Why is it wrong? If there are any linguists out there, would you break it down for me?
Now back to disbelief. I say if you experience disbelief, it is because something is disbelievable. Or maybe I like unbelief better. If something is unbelievable, you experience unbelief. No, I like dis- better. At least in this case. What do you think?
We should probably just pick one negative prefix that applies to all words. There are more than just dis- and un- to choose from. Let’s see, we have non- and, um, there’s… wow I hit a wall pretty fast. That can’t be it though.
Okay, I looked it up and got some more. Im- (as in improper), in- (inaccessible), il- (illogical), and ir- (irrational). Not a big fan of most of these, mostly because they sound silly with the root word ‘belief,’ which is of course our main concern right now. Irbelief? I don’t think so.
We need a poll:
October 26th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
I have a sneaking suspicion that this was just your way of getting to include a poll in one of your blogs. Am I right? :o)
I’d like to go off on a related tangent. One that you may remember from a Drake Mag article I attempted to write Freshman year. …….. Basically, my thought is that the term atheism is all wrong. Look at the prefix “a” and consider the term, for example, amoral. What does that mean? (Sadly, most people wrongly offer the definition of IMmoral here.) Amoral means to be without the concept of morals. So then wouldn’t atheism mean to be without the concept of [a God]? And if so, how is that even possible? No one is unfamiliar with the *concept* of a God.
… Anyway, that’s it. It’s all wrong. Our whole stupid language. Let’s fix it.
October 26th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
I’ve often wondered this same thing.
October 26th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Haha actually no, the poll idea didn’t come to me until I started writing the sentence, “We need a poll.” And then I had to search for a way to do a poll, then get Brad involved in finding me a plug in, the plugging it in, etc. It was a whole thing. Possibly not worth it. We’ll see, depends if we solve the negative prefix thing or not.
October 26th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
you crack me up completely. i’m an editor and i couldn’t tell you why that is. also, i forgot to tell you that i drive an elantra.
October 27th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
I’m concerned about this poll and its inability to accept more than one vote per IP address. Which reminds me, variable prefixes are essential to differentiate between words with common roots, such as INability and DISability (how do you italicize blog comments anyway?) In summation, without variable prefixes the English language as we know it would quickly disintegrate and the resulting chaos and pandemonium would inevitably lead to, well, everyone confusing inability with disability. I guess that would’t be so bad…
October 28th, 2007 at 11:30 am
Whatever Rob, just vote okay.
October 28th, 2007 at 11:36 am
I tried! This is what I’m saying. At first, it gave me the option to add another category, which I did, and subsequently voted for, but then the results didn’t show. When I went upstairs to do it again, the page wouldn’t refresh to allow another vote. So, I still stand by my non-existent multiple prefix category.
October 29th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
[...] an idiot and? never even submitted? my BlogFriday post to BlogFriday? on Friday.? I got so wrapped up in making the damn poll at the end that I forgot the [...]