Talk:unspeak

Rare or non-existent?

If it wasn't SemperBlotto creating this "rare" entry, I would challenge it, but I expect he has done thorough research before removing my claim, so I will accept his view. I still think that unsay, not unspeak is the verb than anyone would use for the meaning stated. Dbfirs 19:29, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but it's been used. Maybe it's dated. unsay is fine as synonym, it seems. DCDuring TALK 20:03, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm happy for it to be marked rare. Dbfirs 20:31, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I feel compelled to unspeak my mealy-mouthed defense of this word and speak more boldly. It seems more common in contemporary literary, feminist, and religious writngs than I had thought. It was also used by Shakespeare in Macbeth. We do not show some words that are barely attestable as being rare. By the comparative standard, this word does not warrant a rare tag, IMHO. How much usage warrants a rare tag? Please recall how modest our attestation resources are. We cannot be speaking of rarity in speech, without using one of the big spoken-English corpera. We must be concerned with rarity in writing. I think I would argue that 10 or more usages (all sources) makes something not rare. By that standard many entries not marked as rare, especially many of those that had attestation problems, should be so marked. OTOH, unspeak would almost certainly not be rare. DCDuring TALK 21:03, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

And I must now unspeak my original comment (to my shame, it was made without research!). Steven Poole's book will, of course make the word increasingly common! Dbfirs 21:21, 21 July 2008 (UTC)