Does loosen and unloosen mean the same thing?

[Simon Chung]

I was once told by my grade 12 prof. that the words "loosen" and "unloosen"
mean the same thing. Now, I don't have a dictionary nearby but can anyone
verify this? Any other pairs of words like the above nature? :-)

Simon.
--
This is only a test.

[Steve Cramer 542-5589]

Simon Chung (sch...@ugly.UVic.CA) wrote:
: I was once told by my grade 12 prof. that the words "loosen" and "unloosen"

flammable/inflammable
ravelled/unravelled

Steve
--
Steve Cramer
Test Scoring & Reporting Services Sometimes you never can
University of Georgia always tell what you
Athens, GA 30602-5593 least expect the most.

[Kerri7777]

Your teacher should be flogged with numerous copies of Strunk & White or
whatever other (nother?) <g> useless text he/she was using.

Loosen means to make looser.
Un- is a negating prefix.
(Undo is the opposite of do. Undress is the opposite of dress.)
Thus, unloosen, if it were an accepted word (which, I would argue, it is
not) would mean to tighten. And I don't think that's what you meant.

[glen.y...@gmail.com]

Unloosen
to make (something) loose : to untie (something)
(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unloosen)


Loosen
to make (something) less tight or firm : to make (something) loose or looser
(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/loosen)

[Harrison Hill]

On Wednesday, 27 July 1994 12:18:02 UTC+1, Simon Chung wrote:
> I was once told by my grade 12 prof. that the words "loosen" and "unloosen"
> mean the same thing. Now, I don't have a dictionary nearby but can anyone
> verify this? Any other pairs of words like the above nature? :-)

Loosen means "make it loose" (not as tight as it was previously) and "unloosen" means much the same thing. Your teacher taught you wisely :)

[musika]

Only 21 years late.

--
Ray
UK

[Dr. Jai Maharaj]

In article
<1994Jul27.0...@sol.UVic.CA>,
sch...@ugly.UVic.CA (Simon Chung) posted

>
> I was once told by my grade 12 prof. that the words
> "loosen" and "unloosen" mean the same thing. Now, I don't
> have a dictionary nearby but can anyone verify this? Any
> other pairs of words like the above nature? :-)
>
> Simon.

What is the difference between loosen and unloosen?

http://www.quora.com/Semantics/What-is-the-difference-between-loosen-and-unloosen

Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.jai-maharaj

[Richard Tobin]

In article <42463f36-bfab-4355...@googlegroups.com>,

I don't recall seeing "unloosen", but "unloose" is well-known. I
wonder if its survival is assisted by the similarity to "unleash".

The OED has this under "un-":

9. The redundant use of un- is rare, but occurs in Old English
unliesan, and Middle English unloose, which has succeeded in
maintaining itself. Later instances are unbare, unsolve, unstrip
(16-17th cent.), and the modern dialect forms unempt(y), unrid,
unthaw (also locally uneave). Another redundant or extended use
(= 'peel off') exists in unpeel v.

-- Richard

[Charles Bishop]

In article <ms7ni7$gqt$2...@dont-email.me>,

Do you suppose he's still tied up?

--
cgharls

[musika]

I would imagine that he might wriggle a bit.

--
Ray
UK

[Whiskers]

Will he cleave to his captors, or cleave from them?

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Interesting, though, that AUE was already up and running in 1994.

--
athel

[Richard Tobin]

In article <d4r4tp...@mid.individual.net>,

Athel Cornish-Bowden <athe...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

>Interesting, though, that AUE was already up and running in 1994.

I am surprised to see that there is a Wikipedia page for AUE. It says
the group was created in 1991. The alt.* hierarchy had already
existed for about 4 years by then.

-- Richard

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

There is also the alt.english.usage newsgroup. That may have been
created earlier.

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[Charles Bishop]

In article <slrnmugkq4.s...@ID-107770.user.individual.net>,

While I have no wish to spoil your pleasantry, can you "cleave from"? I
thought that meaning of cleave was action on an object. You can fer
instance, cleave a section of a log into two half logs suitable for
firewood. I would have said that if I'm stuck to a tar baby I can't
cleave myself away from it. Someone else may come along and cleave me
away from the tar baby, perhaps.

A long way around the barn for that, I think.

--
cahrles

[Joe Fineman]

ric...@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) writes:

> The OED has this under "un-":
>
> 9. The redundant use of un- is rare, but occurs in Old English
> unliesan, and Middle English unloose, which has succeeded in
> maintaining itself. Later instances are unbare, unsolve, unstrip
> (16-17th cent.), and the modern dialect forms unempt(y), unrid,
> unthaw (also locally uneave). Another redundant or extended use
> (= 'peel off') exists in unpeel v.

No mention of "unravel" -- a difficult case. The OED treats it as a
legitimate negative for "ravel" in the sense of tangle, but the AHD
recognizes that in one sense (to unknit) it is synonymous with "ravel".
In one dialect I have encountered (Brooklyn, goyish, ca. 1963), it has
yielded the antonym "ravel up": When your mother unravels a sweater and
you wind the yarn up in a ball, you are raveling it up. For Americans,
at any rate, Macbeth may need a footnote to explain that sleep ravels up
the unraveled sleeve of care.
--
--- Joe Fineman jo...@verizon.net

||: Everybody is close to some edge. :||

[Peter Moylan]

On 2015-Sep-04 02:14, Peter Duncanson [BrE] wrote:
> On Thu, 3 Sep 2015 15:04:01 +0000 (UTC), ric...@cogsci.ed.ac.uk
> (Richard Tobin) wrote:
>
>> In article <d4r4tp...@mid.individual.net>,
>> Athel Cornish-Bowden <athe...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> Interesting, though, that AUE was already up and running in 1994.

My first posting to AUE appears to have been on the 16th of May 1991.

According to Google Groups, the very first posting of all to AUE was on
the 13th of May. I'm not sure how much to trust that, though. A Google
Groups search on "before date" turns up dates that disagree with the
date in the message header. We all know about bugs in the GG search
engine, so there might have been messages that the search engine cannot
find.

>> I am surprised to see that there is a Wikipedia page for AUE. It says
>> the group was created in 1991. The alt.* hierarchy had already
>> existed for about 4 years by then.
>>
> There is also the alt.english.usage newsgroup. That may have been
> created earlier.

No, definitely later, but only slightly. The earliest posting I can find
to that group was in July 1991.

The belief at the time was that alt.english.usage was created by
someone's mistyping. Some news servers, when given a posting to a group
they didn't know about, would simply create the group. (Which meant the
creation of many zero-traffic newsgroups.) It looks to me that someone
intended to post to alt.usage.english, and misremembered the group name.
I suspect that the group was kept alive by people who thought that
alt.english.usage was a more logical word order.

There was also a belief at the time that alt.usage.english was created
because some regulars in other groups were getting sick of spelling
flames, and created a group that was intended solely for spelling
flames. As it turned out, the people attracted to that group were more
interested in other topics.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia

[RH Draney]

On 9/3/2015 2:57 PM, Joe Fineman wrote:

> No mention of "unravel" -- a difficult case. The OED treats it as a
> legitimate negative for "ravel" in the sense of tangle, but the AHD
> recognizes that in one sense (to unknit) it is synonymous with "ravel".
> In one dialect I have encountered (Brooklyn, goyish, ca. 1963), it has
> yielded the antonym "ravel up": When your mother unravels a sweater and
> you wind the yarn up in a ball, you are raveling it up. For Americans,
> at any rate, Macbeth may need a footnote to explain that sleep ravels up
> the unraveled sleeve of care.

I wonder: if you have a knitted bolero jacket, can you unravel it?...r

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

... while dancing.

[Whiskers]

I think one can cleave from. The OED only finds one example, and an old
one at that:

cleave, v.1

3. intr. (for refl.). To split or fall asunder.

1575 G. Turberville Bk. Faulconrie 302 The beake beginneth
to ryue and cliue from hir head.

and a direct search of OED for 'cleave from' returns nothing.

Perhaps I'm older than I thought. Cleaving through and cleaving asunder
still seem to be modern or recent practice though.

The passive version '... be cleft to his captors or cleft from them' may
be more acceptable.

[Charles Bishop]

In article <slrnmuj19n.2...@ID-107770.user.individual.net>,

Thanks.

Charles