^ 13 Comments...

1. North
   June 27th, 2007 at 2:59 am

   Learned english just by watching Bugs Bunny when I was a kid!

2. juliet
   June 27th, 2007 at 11:22 am

   yeah, it doesn’t make any sense .

3. Wrath
   June 27th, 2007 at 11:56 am

   Too funny!! And I suppose if you think about it long enough, that would make sense - seems like unloosen would be undoing the loosen part. Not that English ever makes much sense, I guess.

4. Katrina Mishow
   June 27th, 2007 at 12:55 pm

   Lol.. Yah. English ist very very.. dumb. And.. nah, it’s never made sense, lol. Stupid english. It’s so very confusing! It’s one of the hardest languages to learn.. I think it’s like.. second or third to Japanese and Chinese, perhaps.. Or maybe it’s above them, I dunno. They’re difficult cuz you have to lear new alphabets. Multiple ones. For each.

5. Romeika
   June 27th, 2007 at 3:01 pm

   I didnt get that one either! But learning danish is a LOT worse:)

6. Seraphine Khorana
   June 27th, 2007 at 3:56 pm

   Thanks North, Juliet, Wrath, Kat and Romeika!
   I’ve been thinking about this all day. You can tighten a bolt, or loosen a bolt. When you UN-loosen a bolt, you continue to loosen until it comes all the way off- Once it’s off, it isn’t loose anymore. It’s twisted logic, but I bet that’s the difference.

7. Jen
   June 27th, 2007 at 11:13 pm

   hahah i guess it does, but english is like the easiest language to learn in the world!

8. Alex Burgess
   June 28th, 2007 at 3:53 am

   OK, I’m going to go out on limb a little and attempt to guess at an explanation of how this ridiculous state of affairs occurred. “Loosen” and “unloosen” do, in fact, mean the same thing. We surely could simply use “loosen” and be done with it–there’s no actual need to add the “un-” prefix.

   However, the word loose is similar to the word “leash” (though the first is from Old Norse “lauss” and the second from Old French “laisser”). Though similar sounding they mean almost opposite things–to leash is to tie up. So to unleash is to set free, very nearly the same meaning as loose or loosen. So my bet is that the “un-” prefix was added to loose to create unloose as a matter of confusion at first–used where the speaker intended to say “unleash”–and then eventually became so common as to have legitimate meaning.

9. vint
   June 28th, 2007 at 9:44 am

   I think the main problem is the English speaking not even speaking decent English, so there is no way we will ever learn it. ‘asta la vista, baby!

10. callie
    June 28th, 2007 at 11:00 am

    Sorry. I only speak *jive*

    *winks
    callie

11. Seraphine Khorana
    June 29th, 2007 at 12:40 am

    English is an organic language, which to say, it changes (unlike, say, Latin).
    Thank you Vint, Alex and Callie. /hugs

12. Katrina Mishow
    June 29th, 2007 at 1:31 pm

    S’mo fo butter layin’ to the bone. Jackin’ me up. Tightly..

    I’m sorry I don’t understand.

    Cutty say he cant hang.

    Oh stewardess, I speak jive.

    Ohhhh, good.

    He said that he’s in great pain and he wants to know if you can help him.

    Would you tell him to just relax and I’ll be back as soon as I can with some medicine.

    Jus’ hang loose blooood. She goonna catch up on the rebound a de medcide.

    What it is big mamma, my mamma didn’t raise no dummy, I dug her rap.

    Cut me som’ slac’ jak! Chump don wan no help, chump don git no help. Jive ass dude don got no brains anyhow.

    Jiiive enough for yah?
    Sorry. ::Shifty eyes.:: I had to. Goooo Airplane!

13. Rampage
    September 13th, 2007 at 6:39 pm

    Gaa..

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