Tagged Questions
1
vote
1answer
56 views
How did “replace” come to mean “put something in the place of”?
Replace has several meanings, but a common one is "to put something in the place of," as in, "After drinking your cola, I replaced it with a beer."
The way in which replace, which seems to most ...
3
votes
1answer
127 views
Is “catenate” used in IT parlance?
When I was doing my IT degree in the 80s we learned that, in programming terms, concatenation was the act of joining two strings together.
Recently I was reading a technical manual and came across ...
14
votes
4answers
784 views
How productive is the prefix “un-”?
Is it possible to use un- with new words such as sit, sleep, sad? I'm currently seeing many words (in programming) which use "un-" in the meaning of undoing something.
For example, is it possible to ...
5
votes
2answers
630 views
Hyphens in verb construction containing prefix such as “re”
In semi-formal business writing in the United States, I often observe that writers tend to add a hyphen between a prefix and the root infinitive of verbs. In many of the cases, the resulting verb ...
3
votes
2answers
713 views
“Reset” or “re-set”?
As far as I know there are two different meanings of the word "reset":
to restore an object/value to a previous/initial state - that's the most widely use of the word;
to set the value/state a ...
6
votes
3answers
4k views
What is the opposite of “enroll”?
Deenroll? Unenroll? I understand words like cancel and resign would work, but is there an appropriate antonym with "enroll" in it?
3
votes
6answers
546 views
Antonym of the verb “complete”
I have an action on a web form. It's a button whose action is to complete a case.
I need to name another button, and I want to use a verb that conveys the meaning of "undo the completion" of this ...
3
votes
0answers
114 views
What does “a-” before a verb mean? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
The times they are a-changin'
The times are a-changing? Why a-?
While listening to some Bob Dylan I've noticed how he sometimes uses the construction a-verb (e.g. ...
4
votes
3answers
1k views
Adding “re” prefix
Can all verbs have "re" attached to the front of the word? I play Scrabble with a friend who feels that in the English language you can put "re" in front on any verb, and not just the ones listed in ...
4
votes
2answers
556 views
“Grudge” vs. “begrudge”
In Faulkner's The sound and the fury two sentences arrive close to one another which have made me wonder about the usage of grudge and begrudge.
I know you grudge what I give him.
And shortly ...
32
votes
9answers
19k views
“Unregister” vs “Deregister”
The concept of "undoing a registration" is widely used in my line of work. While most dictionaries define unregister as the proper verb for it, several widely used and highly considered sources also ...
16
votes
4answers
14k views
“Unselect” or “Deselect”?
If I want the user to revert their operation of selecting an item, should I say: "Unselect the option" or "Deselect the option"?
15
votes
4answers
2k views
Isn't the word “uninstall” wrong?
I've never understood this. Why is the proper usage "uninstall"? You can't actually "unin" something at all and this isn't that case with most (all?) other use cases. Examples:
You make someone ...
