Language Log

That's bù 不, plus = a-, il-, im-, in-, ir-, un-, non- prefixes in English.

It can enter into Mandarin contractions, such as bù 不 ("not") + yòng 用 ("use") = béng ("needn't), and the two Sinoglyphs used to write the constituent morphosyllables can fuse to become béng 甭 ("needn't).

Here's a whole slew of such fusion words and contraction characters:

Ha, I've long been wanting to make a tweet about all those fantastic character combinations with 不: 甭、孬、歪、覔、 丕、奀… And now @edwardW2 dropped me these *amazing* dict. pages (from 海篇心鏡) with tons of those including funky ones like ⿳不成當 and ⿱不⿰安人! 😁 https://t.co/Va7JC3P1Js pic.twitter.com/y6ZeO0PR6W

— Egas Moniz-Bandeira ᠡᡤᠠᠰ ᠮᠣᠨᠢᠰ ᠪᠠᠨᡩ᠋ᠠᠶᠢᠷᠠ (@egasmb) September 30, 2023

Included among them are whimsical items such as one composed of bù 不 ("not") above and lǎo 老 ("old") below (= xiān 仙 ["ageless; immortal; transcendent"]), also another fairly well established one with bù 不 ("not") above and 好 ("good") below (= huài 壞 and other words / glyphs meaning "bad; evil; spoiled", etc.) — see if you can spot them. 

And no dabbling either (see "Selected readings").

From François Lang:

I hope that pushes some linguistic buttons (assuming, of course, that no such word actually exists!).

The best I've come up with is "arhizomorphic", but I'm sure you and your Language Log groupies can do better!

Hidden behind the Keurig in our departmental office, I've been noticing a gawky, ungainly, stray coffee mug with these three words on the side:

can

you

not

No capitalization and no punctuation.

I was mystified.  Whatever could that mean?  I can imagine an arch, haughty, snotty person saying that to someone implying that they don't want the person to whom they're talking to do whatever it is they're doing.  In essence, I suppose it means "You're bothering / bugging / annoying me"; "stop doing that"; "get lost".

I have a terrible hankering for pickled pigs' feet and have been to about a dozen stores in the Philadelphia area looking for a bottle of them.  So far no luck.

But I'm learning a lot about how store personnel tell me they don't have any.

Mostly, of course, they just say, "No(, we don't have any)".

If they're not sure, they usually say (regretfully), "I don't think we have any."

Today, however, I received the same answer four times in one store, "(It's possible) we may / might not have any" — as they walked me around to different parts of the store looking for the pickled pigs' feet.