this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2026
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The amount of smug confidence emanating from your comments is honestly stifling, especially considering how incredibly wrong you are. But let me go ahead and respond to you now in a much more meaningful way.
“Unsweet” is not a clipping of “unsweetened.” “Unsweet” is an adjective meaning that sweetness has been removed from something. “Unsweetened” means that sweetness was never added in the first place. They are two different words with two different meanings. When a server uses “unsweet” to mean “unsweetened,” they are using the word incorrectly and in the wrong sense.
“TV” is an initialism, which is a type of abbreviation. How you arrived at the conclusion that “TV” is simply a shortening of the word “television,” I have no idea. It is quite obvious, however, that you are not fully aware of how the English language actually functions. The fact that you are able to articulate yourself in English at all is frankly amazing, especially considering the sheer amount of smugness following you around.
Adjectives can be shortened. Like in the case of “unsweet”, for example!
Do you also think they have to remove lead from gasoline to make unleaded gas? (Sorry for using the word “gas”; we know how you feel about shortened words.) “Un” is a prefix that can just mean “not” sometimes, as in “unintelligent” ;)
It’s 7:30 a.m. I literally just woke up because my wife needs to make sure the teenager gets up to catch the bus to school. And as I lay here trying to accept the world as it is, with the current economic and political climate, as I do every morning, I find myself needing to explain to people that “unsweetened” and “unleaded” serve essentially the same mechanical linguistic function: they describe something to which the relevant substance was not added. Sweetener was not added to the beverage. Lead was not added to the gasoline.
As the kids mill out of the house complaining about school and the general condition of their overtaxed lives, I wonder whether you have ever used the word “unlead.”
No. I would venture not.
In fact, I would bet good money that you have never used that word, nor would you consider it a shortening or clipping of “unleaded.”
Looks like the teenager has finally departed. The irony that she is going to a public school where she will be taught the nuance of the English language in an academic capacity does not escape me, particularly since I apparently have to deconstruct an insult aimed at me just to demonstrate how stupid it is.
The word “unintelligent” possesses the same basic construction as “unleaded” and “unsweetened.” The prefix “un-” can indicate the absence or negation of something. “Unintelligent” means not intelligent. “Unsweetened” means not sweetened. “Unleaded” means not leaded.
And yet, apparently, somewhere along the way, I have been placed in the position of explaining basic English morphology to someone who thought they had discovered some devastating linguistic observation.
I now sit on the toilet taking my morning constitutional and wondering why I want to insult you in the meanest way possible. Someone has already told me that I am being arrogant and mean, and, honestly, I cannot think of a compelling reason to disagree with them.
But I am going to do it anyway.
This has to be a bit you’re doing. If not, I really feel sorry for that family.
So I can only surmise that what I did went over your head.
Maybe you're some kind of idiot. I honestly don't know. What I can say is that I encounter this consistently on this platform, and I don't know how to counteract it. Yet every time, I find myself compelled to continue responding like a raging bull attracted to the waving motion of a red blanket.
I am making fun of you, sir. I was insulting your intelligence while simultaneously demonstrating that you were wrong about what you were saying concerning your examples of “unintelligent” and “unleaded gasoline.”
I will, however, reiterate my point once again: “unsweet” is not a shortening of “unsweetened.” I don't know how else to get this across to you. Look it up on Google. Ask an LLM. I don't know. Talk to an English professor.
At this point, I am genuinely unsure what more I can do for you.
The best evidence for the fact that unsweet is a shortened form of unsweetened is the fact that that is how it is used.
But tea is the least of your problems. You seem to have a touch of NPD. You may be constitutionally incapable of recognizing that you have a problem (indeed, that is one of the symptoms), but I hope, for your and your family’s sakes, that you are able to get help.
Narcissistic personality disorder... Coming from a guy who called me stupid with a ;)
Morphology in language is a very interesting thing. There are colloquialisms, slang terms, languages within languages, and dialects that can exist across relatively small geographical areas. I say “unsweet” isn't a word, nor is it a shortening of the word “unsweetened,” and yet I can find all kinds of information supporting that statement while simultaneously finding information that contradicts it.
Eventually, we're left with the technical aspect of the argument. “Unsweet” is a word, and it can be used definitionally to mean something in much the same way that “funner” can, which, incidentally, is now also a word. Language is constantly evolving, and words become words through usage and convention.
Nevertheless, we have collectively agreed, through something resembling a social contract, that certain words mean certain things. The construction and evolution of language have a scientific basis that we can study and describe because, otherwise, nobody would be able to communicate with anyone else and make any sense.
Languages change over time. People use words, those words acquire meanings, and eventually those meanings become accepted. “Unsweet,” regardless of how commonly it is used, is not technically or figuratively a shortening of “unsweetened.” They are morphologically different constructions. The fact that people use the word is relevant to whether it is a word; it is not relevant to whether it is a shortened form of another word.
You think I have narcissistic personality disorder? Fine. Feel free to think that. You probably think you're well-rounded and appropriately rational about whatever life throws at you. You probably also think you're above all of this and that you've simply wandered into an argument with some wacko in a Lemmy comment thread.
And by all accounts, perhaps you are.
But so far, absolutely nobody has remotely engaged with me on this particular subject without sounding like a pompous jackass. And I've learned that people generally don't like being treated the way they treat other people, regardless of what that treatment is. So, yes, sometimes I do it anyway, because apparently that's the only language some people understand.
If someone actually wanted to engage with me substantively about the distinction between “unsweet” and “unsweetened,” that would be one thing. Especially considering the actual post we're commenting under, which apparently has quite a few upvotes and people seem to like.
Go figure.
You sound like a lovely person to have a discussion with
I corrected him nicely one time. Then dude caught an attitude. So the bitch slap followed.
Don't know why you have a problem with this.
Because you come across as rude and high and mighty :)
You may be unaware of how others might percieve you and it is often helpful to have that pointed out in case you want to contemplate
And the guy I'm responding to has a cloud of smug surrounding him the size of Seattle.
I responded in kind. I'm also correct in what I was saying. I have zero obligation to be nice to him since he could not be nice to me.
I think it would have been more insulting to try and coddle his dunning Kruger then to simply let him have it.