"Unring" Not in OED

ronbutters at AOL.COM ronbutters at AOL.COM
Tue Nov 27 01:54:04 UTC 2007


I wonder what the criteria are for listing prefixed words when they are semantically transparent? As Robert Burchfield writes (on the OED web site) even an unabridged dictionary can't enter every word. I assume this holds true even in this era of unlimited online capacity (there are still human and $ limits).

Is this an issue that has been discussed in the recent scholarly literature?
------Original Message------
From: Shapiro, Fred
Sender: ADS-L
To: ADS-L
ReplyTo: ADS-L
Sent: Nov 26, 2007 7:35 PM
Subject: [ADS-L] "Unring" Not in OED

The word "unring," found principally in the saying "You can't unring a bell," is not in OED.  There are 49,600 Google hits for "unring."

Fred Shapiro

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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