Henke 2022n

Mr. Lundahl Can’t Communicate and He won’t Read His Own Oxford Dictionary and Spell Correctly: The Imaginary “Undecisives” Example

Kevin R. Henke

September 15, 2022

In the title of Lundahl (2022g) and elsewhere in his essays, Mr. Lundahl uses the fictional word “undecisives.” Rather than admitting his mistake and committing himself to responsibly doing a spell check in the future, Mr. Lundahl in his May 16, 2022 (6:47 AM US Eastern time) email attempts to excuse the inexcusable:

“Undecisives was not a spelling mistake, it was searching for a word. In Paris, I am surrounded by people who can imagine "fourteen = 40" and who are not competent to tell me "you were looking for non-decisive". Your spell checker giving "indecisive" was highly not what I was looking for.”

Well, Mr. Lundahl needs to look for real English words rather than just making up them up, which could potentially confuse our readers. “Undecisives” is not even in Mr. Lundahl’s preferred unabridged Oxford English Dictionary. Although undecisive is an adjective is in the Oxford dictionary, it’s rarely used today and its use was largely restricted to the 17^th to mid-19^th centuries. Once more, Mr. Lundahl has no grounds for using outdated words or confusing adjectives with nouns (Henke 2022k; Henke 2022L). Mr. Lundahl would not have these problems if he would simply stop being stubborn, use a spell-check and conform to acceptable 21^st century spelling along with everyone else in instead of trying to show off.

Lundahl (2022h) has a prime example of how Mr. Lundahl’s improper communication creates confusion when he makes up words like “undecisives.” In Henke (2022b), I complained:

“Unfortunately, Lundahl (2022a-g) also frequently contains a lot of inexcusable misspellings and poor or non-existent referencing. Now, I don’t expect any author’s grammar and spelling to be perfect, but Mr. Lundahl should have at least done a spell check. Obviously, spell checks were needed on the very titles of Lundahl (2022d) and Lundahl (2022g). In particular, the title of Lundahl (2022g) is “Undecisives”, which is not a word in the English language. Lundahl (2022g) probably meant indecisive, which according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary online means inconclusive, prone to indecision, irresolute, or indefinite.”

Lundahl (2022h) then replies:

“No, I meant ‘non-decisives’”.

Exactly my point! Because Mr. Lundahl made up the word “undecisives” and utterly failed to properly communicate, I justifiably misunderstood his words and thought that he meant indecisive.

Lundahl (2022h) then continues with his disastrous excuse-making:

“Conflating the derivation for the compound non-decisive with a half shade taken over from indecisives is imperfect vocabulary (happens to indigenous people too) and most certainly not a bad spelling for either of them. Here is a reference for "non-decisive" (which I nominalised or substantivised) and how it fits to what I am saying:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nondecisive

Example given is very to the point for the word choice:

It was a nondecisive victory, leaving open the possibility of a second attack.”

So, if Mr. Lundahl meant “nondecisives”, why didn’t he just say non-decisive in Lundahl (2022g) instead of producing confusion with his failed attempts at communication? Nevertheless, his use of “nondecisives” is also wrong. Nondecisive is clearly identified as an adjective in the Wiktionary link from Lundahl (2022h). However, Lundahl (2022g) and Lundahl (2022h) are using it as a plural noun. Lundahl (2022h) even admits that “nondecisives” is not a noun when he states:

“Since in the Classical tradition I think of the process of arguing back and forth as a kind of battle (like chess more peaceful than punching someone in the face, for instance), the martial tone of the example is very much to the point for my word choice. And as said, recalling "undecisive" instead of "non-decisive" is clearly not a spelling mistake, but looking for a word. Then I substantivise it, as instead of saying ‘the red cars’ I could say ‘the reds’ in an enumeration of differently coloured cars, instead of ‘some non-decisive arguments’ I give the heading "non-decisives" with a bad word formation giving ‘undecisives.’”

Here, Lundahl (2022h) finally seems to recognize that “undecisives” is a product of bad word formation. It’s also not a good idea for him to try to convert an adjective, like red, into a noun, like reds. It’s bad communication and it creates confusion. Someone might recognize that individuals are talking about red cars if they say reds in the lot of a car dealership. Otherwise, when I hear reds, I think of the slang term for communists or the Cincinnati baseball team.

Besides not liking “undecisives”, The Oxford English Dictionary, which Mr. Lundahl prefers, also does not like “non-decisive” or “nondecisive” and prefers: indecisive, non-decision, undecisive or decisive. Interestingly, for some reason, Mr. Lundahl likes Wiktionary better than The Oxford English Dictionary when it comes to making up certain words. While it’s apparently acceptable to use Wiktionary, Mr. Lundahl thinks that we “half-educated” fools need to stay away from the “puritanical” Merriam-Webster dictionary (emails from Mr. Lundahl May 16, 6:58 AM and May 17, 2022, 12:41 PM US Eastern Time; Henke 2022m). Since my English has worked very well in all the books and articles I’ve written, I’m not taking his pedantic, 17^th century and inconsistent advice.