Yesterday, which was Maundy Thursday in the Christian calendar, was marked by a dispatch from Mosul, Iraq, filed by a New York Times reporter named Solomon Moore. In an effort to dispel the forces that oppose our holy mission in Iraq, Solomon Moore reports that there have been “several stepped-up attacks” on suspected insurgent hangouts. Mr. Moore goes on to report that there has been some combat in “unstepped-up attacks.” So we have stepped-up attacks and unstepped-up attacks, which has caused my feeble mind to embrace the failure in the English language to extol the value of the word “un.”
There are several instances in the English language where the phrase “un” should be applied. Today in New Jersey I am told the sun is shining, and when asked for a weather report, I would reply, “It is unrainy.” It is also unsnowy and unsleety.
In the sacred state of Missouri, we are told that today floods abound in the eastern part of that great state. That is old speech. In the speech of new neologisms, the word for this condition is “undroughtlike.” Over the Easter weekend which is coming up, the forecast is for cold and windy conditions, again using the old speak language. In new speak, the word for cold is “unwarm.” The word for windy in new speak is, of course, un-calm. Thus the word for the nickname of Chicago would not be the Windy City but instead would be the “un-calm city.”
The new neologisms have applications other than the weather reports. For example, if a young swain attempts to date a new girlfriend, he must assure her mother that his intentions are un-seductive in nature. Unfortunately in the current circumstances that prevail among our young folks, if the young lady reports that the swain lived up to his oath to be un-seductive, other young women will be turned off and will be unlikely to accept his overtures for an evening out.
In international affairs, there are great possibilities for the use of the prefix of “un.” For example, when our greatest of presidents, Mr. Bush, threatens war with Iran, he could tell them that the United States intends to see to it that “unpeaceful” actions will be undertaken if Iran pursues its “nu-cu-lar” ambitions. In the current flap about the employees of the State Department attempting to examine the passport files of Barack Obama, we are told that this was a case of innocent snooping by low-level employees who have been fired. Even in old speak, this so-called snooping should be called unauthorized examination of the passport files of Mr. Obama.
Well, there you have several examples of how the prefix “un” can be used to improve the English language by the use of new neologisms. I am painfully aware that critics will contend that the term “new neologisms” is a tautology, but I am undeterred and unimpressed by that criticism.
When ancient Athens fell into disrepair, the scholars and thinkers moved from Greece to such mid-Western towns as Herculaneum, Peculiar, and Eureka, all located in the great state of Missouri. The descendants of those great scholars have assured me that without new neologisms, the English language will wither, much like the language Aramaic, which was allegedly spoken by Jesus. So you see, my efforts in this little essay to preserve the tongue of the Anglo-Saxon race should be construed as holy and heroic, not unholy or unheroic. Certainly not.
Finally, I draw comfort from an ancient hymn of the Protestant church, the chorus line is:

“Oh, the land of cloudless days
Oh, the land of an uncloudy sky
Oh, they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise
Oh, they tell me of an uncloudy day.”

If the prefix “un” is sacred enough for hymn writers of the Protestant faith, it should be good enough for readers of Ezra’s essays.
E. E. CARR
March 20, 2008
Essay 300
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Kevin’s commentary: Happy 300! For the record, this is the 300th essay that Pop wrote and the 394th that I’ve published.
So far as the essay itself goes, I’m reminded a little bit of Orwell’s 1984. They use ‘newspeak’ in that book, which explores a similar concept. From wikipedia: “”Un-” is a Newspeak prefix used for negation. It is used as a prefix to make the word negative, since there are no antonyms in Newspeak. For example, warm becomes uncold. It is often decided to keep the word with a more unpleasant nuance to it when diminishing vocabulary. Therefore, cold is preferred to unwarm or unhot, and dark is preferred to unlight.” Maybe Orwell and Ezra were on the same wavelength.
That said I feel like the suffix leaves room for a lot of ambiguity when the word it’s modifying doesn’t have a clearly defined opposite. If you asked me the color of my bedroom and I said it was “unblue” you wouldn’t really come away much more informed than when you started. An “unrainy” day could easily be a snowy one, a windy one, etc. Then again I guess we could just set up common connotations, and everything would be fine. Seems like a pretty unbad idea to me, at the end of the day.