Date: Wed, 3 May 1995 23:10:09 -0700

From: Anton Sherwood dasher[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NETCOM.COM

Subject: negatives and positives



David Muschell dmuschel[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAIL.GAC.PEACHNET.EDU asks:

Why don't we say:

[inter alia]

"I am traveling cognito (identifying myself to everyone)"

(I like that one! Is the driver of the Batmobile cognito?)

"They planned their trip very petuously (same)"

"She eptly walked through the crowd (gracefully)"



Well, in most cases because it's not worth mentioning.



Not "petuous" (or "perious"), because the prefix isn't the negative.



Not "ept", because "inept" is the negative of "apt".

(Words like this are evidence that early Latin accented the first

syllable of every word.)



I want to know why bus drivers can't say the word "delay"

without the prefix "slight".



*\\* Anton Ubi scriptum?