De-gaying

[Laurence Horn]

>?Delice or derice a child's hair?...BB

For me, the former is only "de-louse", and that's a lexicalized
version of what "de-rice" is an innovative version of.

>  >-----Original Message-----
>>From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]
>>On Behalf Of Laurence Horn
>>
>>Very nice.  And I like the fact that it conforms to my
>>(admittedly not always reliable generalization on the use of
>>de- as a category-changing prefix for denominal and
>>deadjectival privative verbs; other attested examples are
>>_de-stale_ (an old bagel), _de-rice_ a child's hair.  (As
>>opposed to the less likely innovative verb "un-gay",
>>"un-stale", "un-rice", given the absence of verbal bases for
>>these.)  Yes, the verbs "unnerve", "unsex", and "unman" would
>>be counterexamples to the generalization, but they were
>>lexically established centuries ago, when the division of
>>labor between un-verbs and de-verbs was not yet functional.
>>
>>Larry Horn
>>