New(ish) "unrefutable"?

Question

A usage which appealed to me, but perhaps others won't find it remarkable.
Guardian , 9 Dec '04, G2 p17 col 2:
"The internet is even better than the Bible when it comes to spreading unverifiable, unrefutable stories." (Gary Taylor, 'We have to protect people' )
'Unrefutable' is all over the Internet, of course, even though in OED1's time it was "now rare" (OED1 gives three examples in which it appears to = 'irrefutable'). OneLook and my desk dictionaries don't carry it, I suppose because the prefix is infinitely productive. But what I like about this use is that the author clearly means it not as a synonym for 'irrefutable', but as a near-synonym of the scientific 'unfalsifiable'. The truth of the stories he refers to is not incontrovertible or incontestable, but untestable.

Is the word used much in this way? I wonder if this sense is too delicate to survive in a broad-brush wordscape.
Mike.

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]A usage which appealed to me, but perhaps others won't find it remarkable. Guardian , 9 Dec '04, G2 ... word used much in this way? I wonder if this sense is too delicate to survive in a broad-brush wordscape.[/nq]
I suppose from what you say about the OED entry that we have to see "unrefutable" in this sense as a nonce word, but I've always held that we're free to make any word we like with affixes, and such words are just as legitimate as those that appear in the lexicons.
The writer was faced with a choice, and he chose correctly. "Irrefutable" would have implied somewhat that the stories are true, and "un-...un-" is luckily good style.

Perchprism
(southern New Jersey, near Philadelphia)

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]A usage which appealed to me, but perhaps others won't ... sense is too delicate to survive in a broad-brush wordscape.[/nq]
[nq:1]I suppose from what you say about the OED entry that we have to see "unrefutable" in this sense as ... choice, and he chose correctly. "Irrefutable" would have implied somewhat that the stories aretrue, and "un-...un-" is luckily good style.[/nq]
Yes: his meaning was admirably clear. But that wasn't my question: you reckon it's probably a nonce-use? Certainly I don't think I've met it before, which is why I raised the matter. Has anybody had an encounter? Or is it in a later OED?
Mike.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]have it don't But as scientific[/nq]
What I meant is that I find the use remarkable as an instance of excellent auctorial judgement, but not at all as a word per se. As I said, we're free to do such things *****-nilly, and the dics be damned. My two cents is all.

Perchprism
(southern New Jersey, near Philadelphia)

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]'Unrefutable' is all over the Internet, of course, even though in OED1's time it was "now rare" (OED1 gives three ... word used much in this way? I wonder if this sense is too delicate to survive in a broad-brush wordscape.[/nq]
I like it. A quick Google suggests that most of the 'net usages are in the 'irrefutable' sense, although some are unintentionally correct in your sense, eg
"Reputable Scientists have given us unrefutable scientific proof that the Bible was written by none other than *** Himself! Praise the Lord!"
However, there are a few which take care to specify that they do mean untestable or unfalsifiable, eg
... "If it is not, ie if the set has been immunised against refutation (ibid.: 39) by making it unrefutable, ie unfalsifiable and untestable, it is not an empirical ..."
(languages.wits.ac.za/~stefan/Downloads/cnf hilpPhet.pdf)

and this, part of a fascinating exchange with resonances of another thread here, from www.totalblowhole.com/new-3632022-4269.html :

"But an epistemologist is quite correct in advising scientists not to propose unrefutable hypotheses. Such hypotheses can never correspond to a law of Nature. For an unrefutable hypothesis is not a "law" at all - it doesn't forbid any conceivable empirical evidence. Any such unrefutable "law" of Nature must be vacuous - it forbids nothing and hence can explain nothing."
Given examples of this sort, it'll probably be only a matter of time before the OED catches up.

Katy Jennison
spamtrap: remove the first two letters after the @

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Yes: his meaning was admirably clear. But that wasn't my question: you reckon it's probably a nonce-use? Certainly I don't think I've met it before, which is why I raised the matter. Has anybody had an encounter? Or is it in a later OED?[/nq]
I think that, had a wanted to use a word with this meaning and had not found it in my desk dictionary, I would have written "un-refutable". (Inverted commas not meant to show that I would have used inverted commas as well as the hyphen, but simply ... oh, you know what I'm getting at.)

Philip Eden

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[nq:1]have it don't But as scientific[/nq]
I noticed it in the same place as you did and thought "That's one for aue" but I was so disturbed by the contents of the article that I forgot about the word.
(and how good to see Perch back here!)

Laura
(emulate St. George for email)

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Mike Lyle wrote on 10 Dec 2004:
[nq:1]Yes: his meaning was admirably clear. But that wasn't my question: you reckon ("unrefutable" is) probably a nonce-use? Certainly I don't think I've met it before, which is why I raised the matter. Has anybody had an encounter? Or is it in a later OED?[/nq]
I encountered it in a medical paper this week. W3NID and the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999) say it means "irrefutable", but AHD4 is silent here. It's not a nonce word but a variant apparently acceptable in AmE

Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
For email, replace numbers with English alphabet.

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[nq:1]I noticed it in the same place as you did and thought "That's one for aue" but I was so disturbed by the contents of the article that I forgot about the word.[/nq]
This prompted me to go and look for it. Wrrrg. And these people are serious, and powerful.

Katy Jennison
spamtrap: remove the first two letters after the @

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]I noticed it in the same place as you did ... contents of the article that I forgot about the word.[/nq]
[nq:1]This prompted me to go and look for it. Wrrrg. And these peopleare serious, and powerful.[/nq]
Not being complacent or anything, but let's remember that the same libertarian habits which make America seem the loony capital of the West consistently put it way ahead of most of us in other ways too. If I were gay or black or, probably, a woman I'd much rather be in the US than in the UK or Aus. It's a roomy place.

Mike.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]A usage which appealed to me, but perhaps others won't find it remarkable. Guardian , 9 Dec '04, G2 ... than the Bible when it comes to spreading unverifiable, unrefutable stories." (Gary Taylor, 'We have to protect people' )[/nq]
Yes, in fact a poster on the Landover Baptist Community Forum would agree with that statement. According to him or her:
Reputable Scientists have given us unrefutable scientific proof that the Bible was written by none other than *** Himself! Praise the Lord!
[nq:1]'Unrefutable' is all over the Internet, of course, even though in OED1's time it was "now rare" (OED1 gives three ... word used much in this way? I wonder if this sense is too delicate to survive in a broad-brush wordscape.[/nq]
In doing a little googlee-ooglee-oo, it looks as though the people using it as a synonym for "irrefutable" outnumber those using it as you suggest by a margin of at least three or four to one. So getting your restricted definition established isn't hopeless, but it doesn't look good.

New(ish) "unrefutable"?

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