{"id":1698,"date":"2014-11-18T13:10:13","date_gmt":"2014-11-18T19:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/?p=1698"},"modified":"2020-11-25T10:57:02","modified_gmt":"2020-11-25T16:57:02","slug":"dont-dis-disinterested","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/definitions\/dont-dis-disinterested\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Dis Disinterested<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

We recently heard from a reader who defended using\u00a0disinterested<\/em>\u00a0to mean \u201cuninterested.\u201d To most language mavens, this amounts to high treason. The sticklers insist that\u00a0disinterested<\/em>\u00a0can only mean \u201cimpartial, unbiased\u201d: you\u2019d want a\u00a0dis<\/em>interested judge at your trial\u2014an\u00a0un<\/em>interested judge would just want to go home.<\/p>\n

Our correspondent made two compelling arguments. His first was pragmatic: countless people nowadays use\u00a0uninterested<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0disinterested<\/em>\u00a0interchangeably. (True, but countless people also use\u00a0infer<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0imply\u00a0<\/em>interchangeably, and no one is suggesting they are synonyms.) His second argument was historical: both words meant \u201cnot interested\u201d back in the seventeenth century. (That may be, but writers and scholars have affirmed the words\u2019 different meanings for many generations now.)<\/p>\n

The writer Ben Yagoda conducted a survey in his advanced writing seminar and found that ninety-four percent of his students believed that\u00a0uninterested<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0disinterested<\/em>\u00a0both\u00a0<\/em>mean \u201cnot interested.\u201d But after further study, including an Internet search, Yagoda concluded that the formal meaning of\u00a0disinterested<\/em>, while imperiled, is safe for the time being. It is inarguable that words change and evolve, but the traditionalists are determined to keep these two words distinct, with wholehearted support from most English authorities.<\/p>\n

Largely absent from this discussion is the difference between the prefixes\u00a0un<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0dis<\/em>. In adjectives,\u00a0un\u00a0<\/em>simply means \u201cnot,\u201d whereas\u00a0dis<\/em>\u00a0can mean several things, including \u201cdeprived of,\u201d \u201cthe opposite of,\u201d \u201cin a different direction.\u201d Let\u2019s observe\u00a0un\u00a0<\/em>vs.\u00a0dis<\/em>\u00a0in action with other common words \u2026<\/p>\n

\u2022 If you are\u00a0unaffected<\/em>, you are unchanged (or unpretentious).\u00a0<\/em>If you are\u00a0disaffected<\/em>, you are alienated from authority or at odds with society in general.<\/p>\n

\u2022 You are\u00a0unable<\/em>\u00a0if you cannot do a task at a given moment, but you may never be able to do it if you are\u00a0disabled<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u2022 When you\u2019re\u00a0uncredited<\/em>, you haven\u2019t received the recognition you deserve. When you\u2019re\u00a0discredited<\/em>, your reputation has been sullied.<\/p>\n

\u2022 If you don\u2019t measure up, you are\u00a0unqualified<\/em>, although you can change that with a little hard work. But once you have been\u00a0disqualified<\/em>, it\u2019s over for you.<\/p>\n

\u2022 If you feel\u00a0unease<\/em>, you are\u00a0<\/em>restless or uncomfortable. There is much more on the line when you have a\u00a0disease<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So the prefixes\u00a0un<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0dis<\/em>\u00a0cannot be considered interchangeable. We see from the examples above what a difference\u00a0un<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0dis<\/em>\u00a0can make when one rather than the other precedes the same root word. We should take this evidence to heart and resist excuses for making\u00a0uninterested<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0disinterested\u00a0<\/em>synonymous.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pop Quiz<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pick the correct word. Answers are below.<\/p>\n

1. Despite her demands for equal pay, she claims to be uninterested\/disinterested in the theory of feminism.<\/p>\n

2. As a(n) uninterested\/disinterested observer, I can enjoy the game more than a diehard fan is able to.<\/p>\n

3. This uninterested\/disinterested truth-seeker was getting it from both sides.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pop Quiz Answers<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Despite her demands for equal pay, she claims to be\u00a0uninterested<\/em>\u00a0in the theory of feminism.<\/p>\n

2. As a\u00a0disinterested<\/em>\u00a0observer, I can enjoy the game more than a diehard fan is able to.<\/p>\n

3. This\u00a0disinterested<\/em>\u00a0truth-seeker was getting it from both sides.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We recently heard from a reader who defended using\u00a0disinterested\u00a0to mean \u201cuninterested.\u201d To most language mavens, this amounts to high treason. The sticklers insist that\u00a0disinterested\u00a0can only mean \u201cimpartial, unbiased\u201d: you\u2019d want a\u00a0disinterested judge at your trial\u2014an\u00a0uninterested judge would just want to go home. Our correspondent made two compelling arguments. His first was pragmatic: countless people nowadays […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-definitions","category-prefixes-and-suffixes"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1698"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}