Ambiguous lock
A curiosity-led ambling through the pathways of the internet one night revealed something to me that I’d never previously noticed about the English word “unlockable”. A quirk whereby it may mean either of:
- impossible to lock
- capable of being unlocked
In first case, we have “un + lockable”, where the “un” acts like “not”, and says that we mean “not lockable”. And for the second meaning, we have “unlock + able”, which says that we mean “possible to unlock”.
Pretty wildly different meanings! And seemingly all because the “un” prefix is permitted to mean either negation (not lock) or reverse/opposite action (unlock). Despicable! And Zamenhof knew it; thankfully he blessed us with both ne and mal, so that we didn’t have to tolerate such flagrant ambiguity in Esperanto:
ŝlosi
to lock (SHLO-see)
malŝlosi
to unlock
ŝlosebla
lockable
neŝlosebla
impossible to lock
malŝlosebla
capable of being unlocked
Neat !