"Unring" Not in OED

[Charles Doyle]

Paremiologishly speaking, I'd say part of the wit of the proverb "You can't unring a bell" consists in the rarity (if not, indeed, the presumed nonexistence) of "unring" as a word.

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2007 10:15:17 -0500
>From: Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
>Subject: Re: "Unring" Not in OED
>
>On Wed, Nov 28, 2007 at 09:49:57AM -0000, Michael Quinion wrote:
>> Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
>>
>> > Perhaps something like 'of or relating to the work of a
>> > paremiologist', the last word being one that is in your OED.
>>
>> It may be appropriate, in view of comments about the OED's rules for
>> including words, to wonder about the absence of "paremiological" (or
>> "paroemiological") from the recent revision of the letter "P". It's easy
>> to find examples in scholarly books and papers. Since "paroemiology" is
>> there, it would be little effort, surely, to add the adjective? This
>> thread alone shows it would be useful.
>
>I can only assume that when the entries were drafted, the
>evidence for _paremiological_ was too slight to merit
>inclusion. It's always possible to hypothesize, and sometimes
>even find, rare words made even rarer by the application of
>predictable affixes. For example, Google returns six hits for
>"paremiologically" (of which the first three are for
>"Paremiologically oriented folklorists and cultural historians
>have assembled collections of such invectives," from different
>version of an essay by paremiologist Wolfgang Mieder on "the
>only good Indian is a dead Indian", originally in the _Journal
>of American Folklore_ in 1993). This doesn't mean that
>_paremiologically_ should be included in OED, however--it's
>extremely narrowly focused, and transparent to its intended
>audience.
>
>With that said, it does seem as though _paremiological_ should
>be considered, and I've passed it along to those to whom one
>passes such things.
>
>Jesse Sheidlower
>OED

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