About Unsomething
A dictionary of things that are, in one way or another, not.
What is Unsomething?
Remember the unbirthday? In Alice in Wonderland the Mad Hatter is very happy to celebrate every day that is not your birthday. It turns out he was onto something. Put un in front of almost anything and you get a word for how things really are.
A loan that will never be repaid is an unloan. A decision that everyone wants to overturn is an undecision. A book written by a machine is an unwriting. Unsomething is a dictionary of words like these, each with a short definition and an example.
The idea is comic, and a little bit of parody. It borrows from George Orwell's Newspeak and turns it upside down: instead of words that hide what is going on, here are made-up words that say it out loud, and perhaps unkindly. Every something can have an unsomething. What a topsy-turvy world we live in.
Not to be confused with Unspeak
You may know the word Unspeak from a serious book. The British writer Steven Poole used it as the title of his 2006 book Unspeak. In his sense, Unspeak is a phrase that sounds like a neutral description but quietly carries a political argument inside it, so that the argument is won before anyone has had a chance to disagree. His book picks such phrases apart and shows what they are doing. It is a careful piece of political and linguistic criticism, and well worth reading. Find the book on Amazon.
| Steven Poole's Unspeak | Unsomething | |
|---|---|---|
| Tone | Serious, analytical | Comic, a bit of parody |
| What it is | A phrase that hides an argument in a neutral-sounding term | A made-up un-word that names how things really are |
| What it does | Takes the phrase apart to expose the spin | Puts a name on it, with a smile |
| Form | A book with extended argument | A short list: word, definition, example |
The two ideas are cousins. Both are interested in how language shapes what we notice, and some entries here may make you think of his book. But Unsomething is a game with words, not a study of them.
Add a word
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