1. DavidGil

    DavidGil New Member

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    A word that's puzzling me

    Discussion in 'Word Mechanics' started by DavidGil, Feb 9, 2008.

    A word puzzled me earlier, while I was trying to write the first three sentences of a new work. ‘Thine heart is the essence of humanity,’ read the text. John sighed. Another murder to remain unsolved.

    The opposite of solvable is spelled how exactly? I couldn't find the correct spelling of it in MS Word nor in a dictionary/theasaurus.

    What I wanted to say was:

    ‘Thine heart is the essence of humanity,' read the text. John sighed. Another murder, another unsolvable one. (I know there could be an e in there however after the v. But the processor didn't accept either version.)

    I know the other variation it could be is insolvable. Anyway, I'm a bit perplexed. ;) Google isn't much help either and I'll probably settle on the first example now, but still, I'm just curious.
     
  2. Cogito

    Cogito Former Mod, Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Insolvable is correct, according to dictionary.com, but you can also consider insoluble.
     
  3. DavidGil

    DavidGil New Member

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    Alright, thanks a lot Cogito. It just generally confused me and anyone I asked didn't know. I'll keep dictionary.com in mind, for the future. I had no idea about that website. I'd just used google to search for it on the net and it turned up results that weren't pertinant to what I wanted to know.

    Curiosity was the main reason I asked. You know, you don't know something and you need to know? ;) Or else, it drives you insane.
     
  4. Cogito

    Cogito Former Mod, Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Too late, in my case. Nhahaha. hee hee. Haw haw haw - ngh? gulp.
     
  5. mammamaia

    mammamaia nit-picker-in-chief Contributor

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    'insolvable' grates on my reader's nerves... the more common 'insoluble' feels much better to this aged person who'd never seen/heard the former term in her youth... or since, as a matter of fact...
     
  6. Cogito

    Cogito Former Mod, Retired Supporter Contributor

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    I'm with you on that, Maia. Although I suspect the character might find "unsolvable" a more natural word to use, lbeit not entirely proper. So if this is a literal thought, color may win out over correctness.
     
  7. DavidGil

    DavidGil New Member

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    Hey, thanks for the continued input. I also thought of insoluble. It was at least, the most correct word I could get the processor to accept. I agree as well, it sounds better. A good point though regarding which word the character would use.

    And Cogito, I think I'd have a field day trying to decipher what you said further up. ;)

    (I've settled on the phrase to use now by the way.. However, I may rephrase the sentence in question to fit with insoluble.)
     

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