Coming Unraveled

Reflections on Opposites

As I was binding off this möbius scarf a few days ago, I began to reflect on some of the many oddities of the English language. No, it wasn’t about the word “möbius”, but rather the pair of words “ravel” and “unravel”. Just relying on the presence of the prefix “un-” you would think that one of these words would be the opposite of the other. But they both mean exactly the same thing. How did that come about? But then I was reminded of a Facebook post that was making the rounds a couple of weeks ago. It seems that the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary have declared that the verbal abomination “irregardless” is now an officially accepted word. English majors everywhere, including myself, were clutching their chests in shock and horror. At least they haven’t admitted the even more abominable “irregardlessly”. Not yet. (It has taken me decades to accept that, in some cases, sentence fragments are perfectly okay, at least when the meaning is clear.)

Now it’s true that those of us with a smattering of linguistics understand that language is always evolving. But that doesn’t mean we have to like it. I’m always going to cringe when I hear “irregardless”. I’m always going to cheer when I spot a sign in the grocery store which says “15 items or fewer” instead of the more common (and WRONG) “15 items or less”. And split infinitives will always sound like fingernails across a blackboard. But I have happily abandoned the rule about never ending a sentence with a preposition.

You may be wondering what all this has to do with knitting möbius scarves. As it happens, it’s all because I felt like making one, but the only suitable yarn I had was some ancient handspun that I had reclaimed from a failed sweater. And when I finished that one, I felt like making another so I found another piece of knitting—an alpaca scarf that was too short. So, I unraveled that one. Now that the second scarf is nearing completion, I have spotted another but of knitting that was never finished….