Negative Prefixes

English is a magpie language. It picks up shiny words wherever it can, and it doesn’t care how disorganised its rules become in the process. Or should that be ‘unorganised’? Take prefixes, for instance. We have de-, dis-, un-, and in-, all of which signify that something isn’t the case. And they’re not the only negative prefixes. Don’t get us started on im-, il-, a-, ab-, and non-!

Rather than try to explain this topic in full, then, we’ll take a look at a few common proofreading issues related to negative prefixes in English.

Prefixes and ESL Clients

Keep in mind that, as a proofreader, not all your clients will speak English as a first language. Sometimes, this can lead to mixing up negative prefixes. For instance, while most fluent English speakers would spot the problems with the following, an ESL client may not:

Feeling disimportant can make you inhappy.

As such, look out for prefix-related mistakes when proofreading ESL documents. And never assume that what seems obvious to you will be obvious to someone else.

Tricky Word Variations

Some word stems can take more than one negative prefix. And this can make distinguishing between similar words tricky, even for fluent English speakers. Word stems that can take either dis- or un- to create words with distinct meanings are particular offenders.

In the rest of this post, then, let’s look at some similar words that use different prefixes.

Uninterested vs. Disinterested

There is a big difference between being uninterested and being disinterested. Uninterested means not interested, so it applies when describing someone who is bored or simply doesn’t care about something enough to engage with it. For instance:

Despite his brother’s enthusiasm, David was entirely uninterested in mountaineering.

Disinterested, meanwhile, means having no vested interest in something. For instance, if someone were asked to resolve an argument, we might say:

I trust Chrissy’s opinion as she is a disinterested party in this dispute.

To explain this difference further, we can look at academic research: it’s good for a researcher to be disinterested, as it means they’re approaching their study without bias. But it’s probably a bad thing if they’re uninterested, since they won’t do their best work if they’re bored!

Make sure to look out for this difference in your clients’ writing.

Unorganised vs. Disorganised

Both unorganised and disorganised combine a negative prefix with organised to mean not organised. And in many respects, the two words are basically synonymous.

However, the connotations of these words are slightly different. Unorganised is more neutral in tone, so we would typically use it in a descriptive sense. For instance, if we were referring to how we approach raw data from a study, we might say something like:

We then took the unorganised data and applied three sorting techniques.

Here, for instance, unorganised simply means not yet organised.

Meanwhile, disorganised is more negative. It typically implies that something is chaotic or badly planned, giving it a judgemental tone. For example, we could say:

The data was so disorganised it was impossible to draw any conclusions.

In this case, disorganised doesn’t just imply that the data was not yet organised, but also that no attempt had been made to organise it (or that any attempt to do so had failed).

Unorganised also has some niche uses that disorganised doesn’t cover, including:

• Having no organic structure
• Not organised into a worker’s union

If you see these terms when editing, make sure the client has used the right one.

Unsatisfied vs. Dissatisfied 

The distinction between unsatisfied and dissatisfied is subtle, but using the wrong word will change the meaning of a sentence. Both terms mean not satisfied, but while an unsatisfied person is not satisfied yet, a dissatisfied person is actively displeased. Remember:

• Someone who is unsatisfied by their food might order some more.
• But someone who is dissatisfied with their food might send it back.

In this sense, unsatisfied and dissatisfied are like unorganised and disorganised. And, similarly, if you spot either word in a document, take a second to ensure it has been used correctly.

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