"a-loose"

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:50 PM -0400 7/30/04, Wilson Gray wrote [re "unthaw"]:
>
>>I've not only heard it, but I also use it. Your story reminds me of
>>the Vermont-born buddy of mine who informed me that there's no such
>>word as "a-loose," after tiring of hearing me use it. I was stunned to
>>see that WC agreed with him, since I've used "a-loose" since about 30
>>seconds after I learned to talk. However, vengeance was mine. A couple
>>of hours later, as we were watching a college football game, we heard
>>the color man say something like, "Did you see the way that Smith
>>broke a-loose after Jones tried to tackle him?!"

I wonder if "a-loose" here is an adjectival derivative of "unloose",
the redundant un-verb alternant of "loose(n)".  This verb has been
attested for centuries, as the OED indicates, although it was never
accepted as a "real word" by prescriptivists who objected to the
apparent illogicality of the fact that while "untighten" is the
opposite of "tighten", "unloose(n)" is (predictably) a synonym of
"loosen".  (Just as with "unfreeze"/"freeze"/"unthaw"/"thaw"; as I
mentioned yesterday, there is a sound semantic motivation for these
asymmetries.)

Here is George Campbell's manifesto of 1776:
================
The verb to unloose should analogically signify to tie, in like
manner as to untie signifies to loose.  To what purpose is it, then,
to retain a term, without any necessity, in a signification the
reverse of that to which its etymology manifestly suggests?...All
considerations of analogy, propriety, perspicuity, unite in
persuading us to repudiate this preposterous application altogether.
[_Philosophy of Rhetoric_, 1776: 335-36]
================
Fortunately, we Americans were declaring our independence at about
the same time, precisely to  unloose ourselves from such tyrannical
strictures.

Larry