[Lexicog] unlex-entries

[Mike Maxwell]

fieldworks_support at sil.org wrote:
> But then I wonder, if you had an ungrammatical error that happened once
> every 1000 uses of a word or construction, after several years you could
> find a number of examples of the "incorrect" usage. Does this then make it
> correct?

Well that's part of the issue he raises.  Another part, of course, is
what it means to be "correct" (cf. the usage of 'irregardless' to mean
'regardless', which I was once corrected for by a linguist, and which I
agree is a mistake, (ir)regardless of how common it is).

The other issue which Mark raises in this particular case is why, when
we hear this, we do not (most of us) immediately notice the problem, and
why for some people it may even be difficult to understand that there is
a problem after it has been pointed out.  All of which leads one to
wonder whether there really is a problem, and at what point such a usage
could be considered to be "good" (whatever that means).

> But to me there is a logic to this usage. What is meant here is "not
> unpacked", or "ununpacked". The double negation (which here makes sense)
> gets collapsed to a single negation, either because of the rules against
> double negation in English, or as a contraction "ununpacked" > "unpacked".

It's not unlikely, nor does it seem improbable, but I for one am not
unsure: this newspeak is double-plus ungood.
--
	Mike Maxwell
	Linguistic Data Consortium
	maxwell at ldc.upenn.edu


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