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Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

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negating

How do you negate the word deliberate? Undelibertae is not correct according to dictionaries. What then?

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"Indeliberate" is correct, though rather antiquated and unnatural-sounding. You may want to choose a replacement word, such as: "accidental," "random," or "unplanned.

anonymous4 Jun-21-2004

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Depending on the context, you might want to use non-deliberate; if it were a formal context, for example.

Armchair Linguist: http://comfylinguist.blogspot.com/

Armchair_Linguist Jul-11-2004

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Oops, I see you don't support HTML. Sorry. :)

Armchair_Linguist Jul-11-2004

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Deliberate is one of those fun English words that has two very different meanings, yet appears the same in both.

To "deliber-ATE", means: to discuss, debate, argue, etc. an issue or topic.

"They were in deliberations for hours."
"They deliberated about whether it was better to go with red than with blue."

For this meaning/pronunciation, the opposite meaning would thus be to "agree", "concur", or
"compromise".
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To do something "deliberately" or to be "deliberate" with a short 'ate' instead of a long---means: to do something willfully, with intention, on purpose.

"He deliberately ate my food in retaliation for me stealing his shampoo."

The opposite of this would thus be
"unintentional", "not on purpose", "I didn't do it deliberately!", etc.

michelle1 Oct-31-2004

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try 'inadvertent'.

set Apr-13-2014

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