Uncanny

[Dr. Goodword]

• uncanny •

Pronunciation: ên-kæ-nee • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Adjective

Meaning: Weird, eerie, striking in an almost supernatural way; so accurate as to seem not humanly possible.

Notes: This word is now officially an orphan negative, a negative antonym of a word that no longer exists. While canny is still around, its meaning has changed to "clever, shrewd", so that it is no longer the antonym of uncanny. The adjective is treated to the native comparison forms, uncannier and uncanniest, but don’t forget to change the Y to I before these endings. The same rule applies to the adverb: uncannily.

In Play: Anything that is too good to be true is either not true or uncanny: Lil Abner has an uncanny ability to say the wrong thing at the wrong time.) Uncanniness borders on the supernatural either because of inexplicability or perfection: "Imogene Ettesis is perfectly uncanny in her ability to sort out DNA evidence at crime scenes." (Can you guess why?)

Word History: The original canny was an adjective based on a now archaic sense of can, "to know," retained with the slightly different sense of "know how to," in such phrases as, "Amanda Lynn can play several stringed instruments." In Old English this word was cunnen, with a root (cun-) that developed, with a little help from metathesis from the same source as the gno- in Latin words like cognition and ignorance, from the verb ignorare "to not know". Without the assistance of metathesis, the same root went on to become know. (Today we owe a note of gratitude to Yim Hall for an uncanny ability to spot Good Words like today's.)

[Slava]

Uncanniness borders on the supernatural either because of inexplicability or perfection: "Imogene Ettesis is perfectly uncanny in her ability to sort out DNA evidence at crime scenes." (Can you guess why?)

Is she a character on CSI and has read the script? Nah, she's probably just a student of genetics, that is to say, a geneticist.

[George Kovac]

One of my favorite poems from early childhood was this limerick:

A canner exceedingly canny,
One morning remarked to his granny:
"A canner can can
Anything that he can,
But a canner can't can a can, can he?

[bnjtokyo]

Dr. Goodword traces ""canny" to "cunnen" in Old English and thence to the unspecified source of -gno- that we can still see in words derived from Latin like "cognition." But I was immediately struck by phonetic similarity to "können" in modern German which also indicates the ability to do something: "Amanda Lynn die Viola spielen kann" - "Amanda Lynn can play the viola." (My German is rusty so please correct it if it needs it.)

[David Myer]

My German is not up to much, so can't help there. But I was struck by the similarity between can in its archaic sense, and ken.

D'ye ken John Peel, with his coat... a poem, I learned in detention as an eight year old. Come to think of it, 90% of the poetry I know was learned in detention. Was it worth it?

[Perry Lassiter]

Wouldn't gno- come from Greek gnosis?

[bnjtokyo]

So it would seem.
At "gnosis" the Etymonline etymology dictionary says "see gnostic"
where we find reference to a PIE root:
"relating to knowledge," especially mystical or esoteric knowledge of spiritual things, 1650s, from Greek gnostikos "knowing, good at knowing, able to discern," from gnostos "known, perceived, understood," earlier gnotos, from gignoskein "learn to know, come to know, perceive; discern, distinguish; observe, form a judgment," from PIE *gi-gno-sko-, reduplicated and suffixed form of root *gno- "to know" (see know (v.)).

[Pattie]

Imogene Ettesis? Oh ha ha, Dr G, very droll!