negation - 'Irrealistic' or 'unrealistic'?


I basically learnt that words that start with a 'm' or 'p' get 'im' as a negative prefix, whilst words starting with 'r' get 'ir' in such a case (irreverent, irrelevant).


However, I stumbled upon 'realistic'. I'm almost sure it is 'unrealistic'. A quick search on Google revealed 13 million hits for 'unrealistic'; 'irrealistic' on the contrary only results in 14.000 hits.


Therefore, is 'unrealistic' an exception to this rule?



Answer



The word realistic is negated with the prefix un-, which is not the same as in-/im-/ir-, and is not subject to the rule regarding in-/im-/ir-. The rule that you cited is correct, but only for words that take the negative prefix in-/im-/ir- (e.g. intractable, impossible, irresponsible). Words that are negated with un- always use un- (e.g. untreatable, unbearable, unready), and never vary the second letter of the prefix.


There is no general rule that will allow you to know which words take the negative prefix un- and which take the negative prefix in-.


The forms that you find on the net with the word irrealistic are either mistakes by non-native speakers, people being clever with word-play, or possibly people creating derivations off of the specialized linguistic term irrealis.


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