Re: to unprepare

From: António Marques (m.ap_at_sapo.pt)
Date: 03/17/05 

Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 21:57:47 +0000

I've been silent until now, but since everyone's dropping in...

> I can't help feeling you're going out of your way to read an absurd meaning
> into a sentence that isn't necessarily absurd. If your intuitive reaction is
> to reject the sentence, then fine, but I'd disagree with the notion that a
> reasonable interpretation can be rendered impossible by the possibility of
> an implausible alternative one.

For me (non native at all) the sentence reads impossible (from the first
moment and not due to some agenda) because 'unprepared' doesn't accept 'by',
since it doesn't accept an unpreparator agent. People are 'unprepared' as
they are 'unkind', it's not something that's been done to them. Iow I'm
saying that 'unprepared' is the negative of a 'prepared' that excludes a
preparator (a synomyn of 'ready'), and not the 'prepared' that implies one
(as in 'made ready'). In that light, it would be fundamentally different
from untouched, since touched can't but imply a toucher.

So the sentence almost appears grammatical but semantics is at a loss: what
does 'unprepared...by' mean? Either it's (by order of acceptability) a fatal
error; 'not prepared...by'; or 'made not to be prepared...by'. Since no
option feels valid, bye bye.

I still haven't understood whether you consider it acceptable or not, and,
if you aren't a native speaker (*only if*), why do you think your opinion
can be superior to theirs when they've all been thoughtfully analyzed. 

-- 
António Marques
There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.
  -- Ansel Adams