incompossible

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

incompossible (in-kom-POS-si-buhl) - adj., not possible together, wholly incompatible or inconsistent.


A stronger word than incompatible, which suggests that two things can't be with each other ("not congruent" as one dictionary puts it) -- incompossible suggests not just they can't be in proximity but can't both exist at the same time. Not rare if not obsolete, which is a pity as sometimes you want a stronger word than incompatible. From Latin incompossibilis, but possibly under the influence of French incompossible -- the roots break down as in-, not + com-, together + possibilis, possible, from posse, to be able.

I told my kids last week about the engagement -- Brad just sorta shrugged but Charlene still refuses to accept it, insisting that she and Felicity are incompossible and she'll never accept her as her mother.


Administrivia: I won't be able to post next Thursday -- can any of our eager volunteer backups take over for the 7th of October?

---L.

Comments

[brassknight86.livejournal.com]

This is indeed a brilliant word, though I think it is beyond the context it is given in this entry (I mean no offense, allow me to explain):
I think this word expresses such a strong mutual exclusivity that it cannot be used for two people or objects. To me, it connotes two realities that cannot be juxtaposed together. Their attributes preclude one another.

Interestingly, I think the term "mutually exclusive" is too precise to usurp incompossible. Mutually exclusive realities simply lie outside of one-another's scope but this word... it's as if the two realities are trying to superimpose and they JUST CAN'T.

...I'm wordy tonight...

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

I think that's putting it a little too strong. For example, two fermions with identical quantum states (including spins) are incompossible, but that's not a batter of distinct realities but of being excluded (if you'll pardon the pun) from having the same quantum numbers.

Only one tennis ball can be at the bottom of the canister.

---L.

I disagree with your disagreement

[brassknight86.livejournal.com]

Good point but I would still prefer the term "mutually exclusive" to "incompossible" in that situation because it sounds more precise (even if the meaning is the same). My sensibilities may differ from yours.

Thus, I disagree that I had put it too strongly because it is a matter of choice not of fact-- I would reserve a word like incompossible for distinct realities and use something else for physics. I don't even know what a fermion is and if you told me two were incompossible I would probably smile and walk away.

Well... alright...

[brassknight86.livejournal.com]

ps: You're still right about the incompossibility of particles though. I thought about it a minute and "mutually exclusive" does not sum it up very concisely.

...I've also heard of fermions (though I haven't read extensively and don't understand them at all) -- I just worked myself into a dramatic mood and wanted to make a point which is that "incompossible" has a connotative thrust from the word "possible" embedded in it.