4 ms·
I think some of the confusion is that "pone" is not a root word or term. So, the opposite of postpone is not prepone, in the same way that prepartum is the oppo
by brk 5y ago
I think some of the confusion is that "pone" is not a root word or term. So, the opposite of postpone is not prepone, in the same way that prepartum is the opposite of postpartum.
- oytis 5y agoWhy? The stem is from Latin ponere, to put, so could theoretically work both ways
- brk 5y agoI probably should have said "a commonly used or understood root word".
- ljm 5y agoI like 'sublime' for that. It sounds like an object could have three states: lime, sublime, and superlime. Something that is sublime would somehow be inferior to its lime counterpart. Like everything has an innate limeness.
- gota 5y agoApparently it could have been like that, as it comes from 'sub'+'limen' ("threshold") Disclaimer: I just googled "sublime etymology"
- smhenderson 5y agoMy favorite is "why is no one ever whelmed?". I've seen this many times in popular culture over the years. People get overwhelmed and underwhelmed but no one ever seems to just get whelmed, even though it's really the same thing as overwhelmed.
- twic 5y agoSubb! I suggest you make a backmal undertological antiposal about this.
- dasyatidprime 5y agoIt shows up rarely in that form in "standard" English, but the related morpheme "-ponent" shows up more often: component (put+together), exponent (put+out), proponent (put+forth). And then the "-pose" variants come from the same Latin root but modified via French: compose, expose, propose.