can anybody (Cara or Marisa) please tell me why is deconsider not considered a word?
I work with a woman from Brazil. she's very fluent in English but she has an occasional "slip-up," I guess you could say, and these are always interesting and fun for me to over think.
yesterday she sent me an email telling me to "deconsider" something she had written in a previous email. while deconsider is not a word, I knew exactly what she was meant. when I met with this woman, I mentioned that decosider wasn't a real word (although it should be) and so she asked me 1) how I knew what it meant if it wasn't a real word and 2) what she should use. I understood what she meant because deconsider follows grammatical rules I was taught in second grade (which is probably how she put it together in the first place and I told her to go with "disregard" or "ignore" instead.
but honestly, I think we should be allowed to say "deconsider." think about it - disregard and ignore are present tense things. you can ignore or disregard something in the present moment but what if you want to erase the memory of something, not just let it sit off in the corner? if you've already told someone to consider something and then you want them to forget about it, shouldn't they then deconsider it?
really, honestly, they should. and anyone who's picky about rules and whatnot, please tell me what rules deconsider might violate? none that reconsider doesn't as well.
so you know how I've been in search of a new hobby? I'm thinking my new hobby should be to use deconsider so much that it eventually makes its way into the dictionary as an accepted word. who's with me?!
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I'm going to have to disagree. So pulling some definitions out of good ol' M-W.
consider: to think about carefully
Now, if I ask you to consider something, I'm asking you to think about it carefully (there are other definitions, but this one works fine). This would mean to deconsider would be to unthink about something. Just like deconsider, unthink is not a word, because, afterall, it doesn't make any sense. You've already thought about something, its too late.
Now, if then ask you to disregard something, I'm really asking you to disregard my request for you to consider something.
disregard: to pay no attention to
So, based on this definition, I'm asking you to "pay no attention to" my request for you to "think about carefully". I can't undo the damage that's already done, provided you've done some thinking already. I can just tell you to expend no more effort.
Now what I want an explanation for is inflammable vs. flammable. That one drives me crazy!
Neil speaks the truth...you can't unknow something. What you're actually asking someone to do is send the thought away somewhere...so...
I think "dismiss" is actually the word you're looking for. Literally "send away." So that thought would not be in their heads anymore.
My Latin is hideous, but I think the reason we don't have "deconsider" (besides the "unknow" issue) is that, in Latin, de-, con-, dis-, etc. are associated with directions. I will not explain this well, but con- and de- can't be opposites because con- means "with" and de- means "down." Dis- means "away," though, so that can be an opposite for con-.
And, Neil, the in- in "inflammable" isn't the in- that means "not." It's the "in-" that means "very," like "invaluable." (It's also in- with the same direction as "in" in English...oh, jeez, I'm getting confusing.) So, literally, something that's inflammable has fire in it. Valuable and Invaluable still have some of this distinction - something can be valuable to one person and junk to another, but something that's invaluable has an intrinsic value to anyone.
that's all fine and good but let me respond with this - I can't even remember what my coworker asked me to deconsider. honestly, I can't. you know why? because I deconsidered it. so there - it can be done!
I urge you all to consider deconsidering something. as any good descriptive grammarian knows, it's the usage that really counts.
Nice try! I see what you're up to. You think that the more you use deconsider, the more likely it is to get adopted. I challenge you to a battle of stubbornness!
I have no idea what you're talking about, mostly because I've deconsidered your comment.
I totally love Marisa.
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