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Chris -- 2018-04-11
For the most part, unruly behavior is rude behavior in someone’s eyes, so there is a good deal of semantic overlap at work here. But this is obviously a “problem eggcorn†(if an eggcorn at all) because of that pesky little prefix “un-.†The authors seem to ignore it and view “rudely†and “unrudely†as synonyms meaning the same thing. Maybe they’re all philologists and they assume that the “un-“ here is an intensifier like the “in-“ in “inflammable.†In any case, while this may not be a perfect eggcorn, I’d argue that it’s still an eggcorn of some type because I just don’t think the “-de-†would sneak in there if the writers weren’t thinking about the rudeness inherent in unruly conduct. This is hard to count because most of the time people are using “unrudely†to mean something like “in a manner that isn’t rudeâ€; the reshaping accounts for only a fraction of the 197/103 r/ughits. Examples:
There is a no cursing sign along the boardwalk in Va Beach Va when I lived there. They said unrudely behavior and cursing were offensive to the tourists.
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/moguldom/2393/
As for Imagers we lost good accounts due to some unrudely employees that drop the ball and did not follow specs.
http://www.topix.com/forum/business/ele … V0HJQUHCSD
The trouble between the Maori and white New Zealanders started when the Maori asked for “protection” from the British government against unrudely settlers.
http://www.rainlane.com/dispbbs.asp?boa … n=0&Star=2
I did in fact find one citation where “unrudely†seemed to mean “rude†or “rudely†even though the word isn’t (obviously) being used eggcorneally:
I received a call this particular morning and to my dismay, this lady was practically shouting over the phone on the top of her lungs in such an unrudely manner that I nearly just hang up on her.
http://janice-daze.blogspot.com/2006_06_01_archive.html
But I’m no more sure what to make of this than I am of those above.
And then there’s the following example. It’s not an eggcorn because the person really does mean “not rude†The thing is though that they say “unrudely†rather than “unrude†– as if “unrudely†were an adjective using the “-ly†ending, like “lovely,†or “kindly,†or “friendly,†and I suspect that “unruly†may be unduly exerting influence upon the form of the word:
It’s not what you say to people it’s how you say it try to be a litttle more unrudely…..
http://www.medhelp.org/posts/show/23806 … st_1529884
Last edited by patschwieterman (2008-08-23 00:23:18)
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As the case of “inflammable” suggests, English speakers seem to have no problem with morphological over-negation. There are also many multi-word examples of over-negation, such as “not … unable” to mean “not able” or “still unpacked” to mean “not yet unpacked” or “still packed.” And of course there is dialect variation in negative concord, so some English speakers will say “I didn’t do nothing,” and speakers who would say “I didn’t do anything” understand them perfectly (though they may pretend not to, as a symptom of word rage).
It seems that English speakers rely on pragmatics, in the sense of understanding utterance meaning from overall context, more than morphological or syntactic calculation to understand negative/affirmative polarity.
All of which is to say that unrudely to mean “rude” shouldn’t give most speakers too much pause in casual usage.
On the other hand, the reshaping is obviously affected by unruly, since Pat’s first and third examples can mean nothing else, and most of the others seem to mean something similar.
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Maybe they’re all philologists and they assume that the “un-“ here is an intensifier like the “in-“ in “inflammable.â€
I think you are correct in your analysis, Pat. “Unrudely” seems to be an eggcorn, however ragged the semantics. I was wondering, though: is there any other example in English of “un-” being used to intensify rather than to negate? Can’t think of any offhand.
A second observation. “Rude” is a word with both a positive and a negative meaning. You are invoking the “impolite” sense of “rude.” But it can also refer to something in a natural state (“the blacksmith plies his rude trade”). It also circulates in the idiom “rude health.” This positive sense of “rude” could be licensing a pseudoreversal of the negative sense.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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I have a number of examples of un- and other “negative” prefixes used where they are effectively redundant, and thus contribute intensification if anything.
unbaring your heart
[people] who received similar instructions in equally uncertain terms.
unfrazzle, unfrayed, unpeel, unrace, unyank the TV from the wall socket, unshovel, de-empty, dethaw, unthawed, unopen
etc.
There is also (and involved in some of the above) a “negative evaluation” meaning of “un-” which shows up some places. The example which comes to mind (not a particularly good one) is “un-American” meaning not non-American, but exhibiting motivations, etc., which one would not expect from a prototypical “true-blue” American (which, it is assumed, I/we approve), to the point of being difficult to construe as American. This is different from straight negation, though the two grade into each other. “Tending to militate against the ethical essence of X” > “Tending to militate against the essence of X” > “Tending to militate against X” > “Opposite to X” > “un-X”.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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I just thought of an example of a non-negating “un-.” How ‘bout “unloosing the bonds.” In the meantime I see that David has provided other good examples. I like “unpeel an orange.” I’ve heard that one before.
Last edited by kem (2008-08-24 12:12:46)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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What a thought-provoking thread.
One other thing phenomenon should be relevant in the analysis of this would be “still un-X” as discussed extensively on Language Log. See Why do thaw and unthaw mean the same thing? and references therein.
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I was thinking about those Language Log posts on “still unpacked” and the posts on “could care less” both there and on our forum as I was doing the write-up for this, but “unrudely” felt a little different to me. In those instances, the problem for speakers seems to be processing a chain of multiple words relevant to the negation in the sentence. You have, say, a negative particle plus a negative prefix, or a negative prefix with an adverb of time (“still unpacked”), or a negative particle with or without a negative polarity item like “at all”—or some other combination that leads to confusion. “Unrudely” by contrast stands by itself.
Also, one of the arguments that the LL people kept coming back to in trying to explain “still unpacked” was that “unpacked” was a haplology or shortening of “ununpacked” that had become hallowed through long use. If memory surfs, not everyone on LL agreed with that analysis. But in any case, in most of the other examples (like “still unwrapped”) that seemed to parallel the “still unpacked” case, the relevant verb referred to a change of state and its “un-” form was itself quite common as an adjective. That’s clearly not the case with “unrudely”—which isn’t verbal, doesn’t obviously refer to a change of state, and isn’t common even in its “standard” meaning.
I think David and Kem offer the best solutions so far with their citations of examples of “intensifier un-” like “unloosen” and “unpeel.” But again, “unrudely” is a little different. My understanding of the “intensifier un-” is that it’s used with words that refer to “an undoing of a thing or its state”—and that works well for “unpeel” and “unshell” and “unthaw,” but is more of a reach in this case. But is it possible that we might sometimes use the “intensifier un-” with negative adjectives like “rude(ly)”? While there are plenty of exceptions, most (“un-” + ”[adjective]) combinations have a positive or neutral adjective filling the adj. position. “Untrue” is fine since “true” has a positive resonance, but “unfalse” isn’t okay for most speakers. (And off the top of my head, most of the obvious exceptions seem to have non-native stems and feel a bit “learned” or bookish—like “unmalicious.” But maybe I’ll have to retract that claim later in the face of a flood-tide of counterexamples from y’all—I don’t have the time to sit around and think about this, unfortunately.) As a result, I think we have a tendency (and I use that word advisedly here) to think of things with the “un-” prefix as referring to something negative. Since “rude” already has a negative connotation, maybe that allows the “un-” prefix to fulfill its intensifier role rather than its negation role in “unrudely.” If this really is happening in the language, some linguist will have written about it; maybe our house linguists can weigh in on that possibility.
[Edit: In pursuit of greater clarity, I added a sentence and rewrote and repunctuated a couple of others in that final paragraph after I first posted this. I don’t think I changed the meaning of anything substantively.]
Last edited by patschwieterman (2008-08-24 16:09:08)
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patschwieterman wrote:
… If memory surfs, …
Good ‘un, Pat!
(Rest of the post was good too.)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Re: surf—yeah, I was disappointed that there were only 3 hits for that, and all puns.
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