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ESL forum >
Grammar and Linguistics > Need help: unreal , irreal or both?
Need help: unreal , irreal or both?
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yunaked
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Need help: unreal , irreal or both?
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Hello,
First of all, I want to thank all of you for the work you do and your readiness to help whenever a member of this great community needs a hand.
Can you tell me now which prefix is correct to get the opposite of � real � & �reality �? Is it �ir � or �un � ? I looked up in the dictionary and only found �unreal � but not �unreality �.Online dictionaries mention both prefixes yet some fellow teachers say they are not reliable. Which one is correct? If both are, what �s the difference?
Thanks in advance and have a good night, afternoon, morning...
Hugs . |
26 Jun 2009
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anitarobi
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Frankly, I have also found irreal in dictionaries, but have never ever seen or heard it used. Only unreal and surreal! As for unreality, I must say I have never seen it used, and I myself would always only use unreal and surreal (they mean different things, I know, I �m just stating their existence)... let �s see what some other people think... |
26 Jun 2009
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douglas
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"unreal" is correct, "irreal" is NOT a word. And since reality is a noun, not an adjective, the "un-" prefix does not apply.
Douglas
(Native Californian) |
26 Jun 2009
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Ayaniw
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Hi!
Both words exist. Most people use UNREAL as opposite of real, though.
IRREAL is also correct. Date of Unreal is 1605 but the date of IRREAL is 1943. The latter is a recent word as you can see.
The dates given above are taken from Merriam Websters.
Cheers,
Al. |
26 Jun 2009
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douglas
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Well, it looks like Al is right--there really is such a word. It looks like it has been carried over to English from the latin-based "romance" languages (Itallian, French, Spanish, Romanian, etc)--I guess we never stop learning in life.
But for your question yunaked--I would consider irreal as a non-word. As a native speaker and an English major that has been a bookworm his entire life, I have never heard irreal spoken nor have I seen it in formal print. This means, if you use it people will think you are speaking improperly.
Thanks for the info Al. |
26 Jun 2009
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yunaked
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Thanks a lot, all of you! |
27 Jun 2009
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alien boy
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irreal is almost unheard of... however you will occasionally come across �irreality � as a way of saying a �delusional world � or �fantasy world � (in a negative sense). Consuming hallucinogenic drugs can give one a sense of �irreality � for example.
Cheers,
AB
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27 Jun 2009
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PhilipR
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Although some dictionaries list irreal as a word - it shouldn �t be as there is no usage of it whatsoever in the real world.
I looked up the frequency in the British National Corpus - a huge database of text and words taken from authentic sources (http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/) - and found that �unreal � had 290 example sentences. Surreal had 122 example sentences; irreal had NONE.
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27 Jun 2009
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ajaaron
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Generally irreal is used in a fantasy concept. I have used it in my thesis. It feels closer in meaning to surreal than unreal to me though officially it is another word for unreal.
The sentence I wrote in my thesis was; "The use of the future tense can lend an irreal aspect to the conversation as the future is rarely considered anything other then fantasy."
There was no comment made on the usage of the word. Why did I use it?? Don �t know :) My brain wanted to put it there :)
In saying this, I would never introduce it to any student who was not advanced or perhaps studying literature.
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30 Jun 2009
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