Difference between "impassible" and "impassive"?
Disc Magnet
please explain the difference with usages?
bert
> What is the difference between "impassible" and "impassive"? Could you
> please explain the difference with usages?
"Impassable" (not impassible) describes terrain
which nobody can get through. "The impassable
barrier of the Himalaya" for example. It's not
impassable to those correctly equipped, but the
context would show why it was impassable to a
certain group at that time. Impassable could
also be used metaphorically of some difficulty
or obstacle, synonymous with "insurmountable".
"Impassive" is completely different. Its origin
is from passion=suffering. An impassive person
is one who appears not to react, not to feel
emotion, in circumstances where most people would.
"He watched impassively as his troops were
butchered by the enemy."
Note, however, that "passive" and "impassive" are
not opposite in meaning.
--
Mark Brader
>> What is the difference between "impassible" and "impassive"?
>> Could you please explain the difference with usages?
> "Impassable" (not impassible) describes terrain
> which nobody can get through. "The impassable
> "Impassive" is completely different. Its origin
> is from passion=suffering. An impassive person
> is one who appears not to react, not to feel
> emotion ...
Not so fast, there.
I thought I'd seen "impassible" used as an alternate spelling of
"impassable", so I looked it up. Turns out that at least one
online dictionary (Merriam-Webster) does list it with that meaning.
However, M-W and several other dictionaries *also* list a word
"impassible" that does mean something like "impassive"; some of
them even use "impassive" in the definition. Clearly this is the
word the original poster was asking about. Personally, I never
heard it before.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "If you wish so, we write your consummations
m...@vex.net | on your bill." --Swiss hotel services handbook
My text in this article is in the public domain.
John O'Flaherty
Per AHD, "impassible" is also a word, and it overlaps with
"impassive":
1. Not subject to suffering, pain, or harm.
2. Unfeeling; impassive
It seems to be the opposite of "passible":
Capable of feeling or suffering; sensitive: a passible type of
personality.
I looked in this word bag for examples -
http://www.americancorpus.org/
There are 25 examples of "impassible" (out of 400 million words), but
17 of them are misspellings of "impassable", unless certain roads are
really stoic.
--
John
Mike Lyle
OED has it from good writers, though I don't think anybody should
imitate it today: <1852 THACKERAY Esmond II. ix, He was impassible
before victory, before danger, before defeat. 1876 GEO. ELIOT Dan. Der.
VII. liv, Gwendolen, keeping her impassible air, as they moved away from
the strand.> There are examples of several closely-related senses, too.
--
Mike.
Steve Hayes
wrote:
>What is the difference between "impassible" and "impassive"? Could you
>please explain the difference with usages?
Impassible means incapable of suffering.
Impassive means that even if you are suffering you don't let it show.
Example: Though he was not impassible, he remained impassive as the
thumbscrews were tightened.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Peter Moylan
> On Fri, 5 Mar 2010 12:38:09 -0800 (PST), Disc Magnet <discm...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> What is the difference between "impassible" and "impassive"? Could you
>> please explain the difference with usages?
>
> Impassible means incapable of suffering.
>
> Impassive means that even if you are suffering you don't let it show.
>
> Example: Though he was not impassible, he remained impassive as the
> thumbscrews were tightened.
>
such a rare word that most native speakers of English have never heard
of it.
(I myself thought it was a misspelling of "impossible".)
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
Steve Hayes
>Steve Hayes wrote:
>> On Fri, 5 Mar 2010 12:38:09 -0800 (PST), Disc Magnet <discm...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> What is the difference between "impassible" and "impassive"? Could you
>>> please explain the difference with usages?
>>
>> Impassible means incapable of suffering.
>>
>> Impassive means that even if you are suffering you don't let it show.
>>
>> Example: Though he was not impassible, he remained impassive as the
>> thumbscrews were tightened.
>>
>A good answer, but Mr/Ms Magnet also needs to know that "impassible" is
>such a rare word that most native speakers of English have never heard
>of it.
>
>(I myself thought it was a misspelling of "impossible".)
And someone else thought it was a misspelling of "impassable".
Nevertheless it's an English word, and it's in my passive vocabulary. I think
the only place I've seen it used with any frequency is in the writings of
theologians discussing the nature of God.
Lewis
> What is the difference between "impassible" and "impassive"? Could you
> please explain the difference with usages?
Impassible (usually used to refer to roads or passes through the
mountains around here) means that one cannot travel through. I might
also be used to refer to narrow waterways which are not able to be
navigated (perhaps at low tide, perhaps never).
Impassive means not showing (or not having) an emotional reaction.
--
Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi. You're my only hope.
HVS
> On 05-Mar-10 13:38, Disc Magnet wrote:
>> What is the difference between "impassible" and "impassive"?
>> Could you please explain the difference with usages?
>
> Impassible (usually used to refer to roads or passes through the
> mountains around here) means that one cannot travel through. I
> might also be used to refer to narrow waterways which are not
> able to be navigated (perhaps at low tide, perhaps never).
That's "impassable", not "impassible"; entirely different meanings.
--
Cheers, Harvey
CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed
Lewis
> On 05-Mar-10 13:38, Disc Magnet wrote:
>> What is the difference between "impassible" and "impassive"? Could you
>> please explain the difference with usages?
>
> Impassible
Yes, I am a terrible speller.
Impassable, obvisouly, was the word I was thinking of.
--
Lithium will no longer be available on credit
Django Cat
> On 06 Mar 2010, Lewis wrote
>
> > On 05-Mar-10 13:38, Disc Magnet wrote:
> >> What is the difference between "impassible" and "impassive"?
> >> Could you please explain the difference with usages?
> >
> > Impassible (usually used to refer to roads or passes through the
> > mountains around here) means that one cannot travel through. I
> > might also be used to refer to narrow waterways which are not
> > able to be navigated (perhaps at low tide, perhaps never).
>
> That's "impassable", not "impassible"; entirely different meanings.
Ah yes, the incomparable Perry Como:-
"It's impassable, tell the sun to leave the sky, it's just impassable
It's impassable, ask a baby not to cry, it's just impassable".
Is it just me, or is AUE getting mindnumbingly tedious at the moment?
DC
--
James Hogg
It's not just you. The perpetual calendar has become the perpetual
thread, causing us all to suffer PTD (post-traumatic depression). Maybe
we should take AUE to Facebook instead?
--
James
HVS
> Django Cat wrote:
>> Is it just me, or is AUE getting mindnumbingly tedious at the
>> moment?
>
> It's not just you. The perpetual calendar has become the
> perpetual thread,
Is that the one that's infested by sci.lang cross-posts? (I killed
the thread some time ago, and it prompted me to kill all messages
cross-posted from there; that's made AUE a much more amenable
place.)
James Hogg
> On 06 Mar 2010, James Hogg wrote
>
>> Django Cat wrote:
>
>>> Is it just me, or is AUE getting mindnumbingly tedious at the
>>> moment?
>> It's not just you. The perpetual calendar has become the
>> perpetual thread,
>
> Is that the one that's infested by sci.lang cross-posts? (I killed
> the thread some time ago, and it prompted me to kill all messages
> cross-posted from there; that's made AUE a much more amenable
> place.)
That's the one, and the thread is all about one man and his news reader,
and his inability to admit error. You are not missing anything.
--
James
Peter Moylan
> Is it just me, or is AUE getting mindnumbingly tedious at the moment?
Part of our burden is putting up with somewhat strange questions from
non-native speakers, but I assume that you're used to that. The major
tedium, at the moment, is caused by the fact that the kibologists can't
resist responding to a certain sci.lang regular, whose function is - I
assume - to keep all the other people in sci.lang regular. (With him for
a friend, who needs an enema?) Even if you killfile him, you're still
stuck with all the responses to his dreck.
I'd like to crosspost this to the people who keep responding to him,
with an appeal to ignore him, but this late in the night I can't recall
the name of their group.
Nick Spalding
on Sun, 07 Mar 2010 01:33:41 +1100:
> Django Cat wrote:
>
> > Is it just me, or is AUE getting mindnumbingly tedious at the moment?
>
> Part of our burden is putting up with somewhat strange questions from
> non-native speakers, but I assume that you're used to that. The major
> tedium, at the moment, is caused by the fact that the kibologists can't
> resist responding to a certain sci.lang regular, whose function is - I
> assume - to keep all the other people in sci.lang regular. (With him for
> a friend, who needs an enema?) Even if you killfile him, you're still
> stuck with all the responses to his dreck.
>
> I'd like to crosspost this to the people who keep responding to him,
> with an appeal to ignore him, but this late in the night I can't recall
> the name of their group.
No problem for Agent users, your filter can specify Ignore Subthread
which kills him and anything arising from him.
--
Nick Spalding
BrE/IrE
HVS
XNews -- and Agent, I assume -- also lets you score messages that
are cross-posted to specific groups (or contain specific words in
the "subject" or "from" fields); a score of -10000 kills the
messages out before I see them.
I realised a while back that although sci.lang may have some OK
discussions in it, I'd not encountered anything interesting in any
of the AUE/SL cross-posts that I'd seen. I've since scored all
cross-posts to or from sci.lang out of existence, and whilst I may
now be missing some scintillatingly witty and informative
discussions, I somehow doubt it.
Peter Moylan
> I realised a while back that although sci.lang may have some OK
> discussions in it, I'd not encountered anything interesting in any
> of the AUE/SL cross-posts that I'd seen. I've since scored all
> cross-posts to or from sci.lang out of existence, and whilst I may
> now be missing some scintillatingly witty and informative
> discussions, I somehow doubt it.
>
Almost all of the sci.lang participants are worth reading. There is only
one person who gives the group a bad reputation.
[Cross-posted, in case the sci.lang people don't realise that their
reputation is going down the gurgler.]
Django Cat
I'm not following that one, either, and yet it sounds.... strangely...
familiar...
DC
--
Django Cat
> Django Cat wrote:
>
> > Is it just me, or is AUE getting mindnumbingly tedious at the
> > moment?
>
> Part of our burden is putting up with somewhat strange questions from
> non-native speakers, but I assume that you're used to that.
Yubbut, usually I get paid for that sort of thing...
DC
--
Brian M. Scott
<gro.nalyomp@retep> wrote in
<news:sIqdncTza6XiHg_W...@westnet.com.au> in
alt.usage.english,sci.lang:
[...]
> Almost all of the sci.lang participants are worth reading. [...]
If one's tastes include crackpots and linguistic
chauvinists.
Brian
Chuck Riggs
If we only interchanged questions and answers among ourselves -- the
native speakers -- the discussions would get dull and repetitive, IMO.
--
Regards,
Chuck Riggs,
An American who lives near Dublin, Ireland and usually spells in BrE