Looking for an English word

[J]

Hi everyone

I'm looking for an English word. I know what it means, but I can't remember what it is!

It's one word that means you can't say things like "quite dead" because it's either 'dead' or it's not.

To use the word in this example, I think you'd say "you can't have any ___ of 'dead'", so I'm guessing it's a noun in this case but an adjective describing the same thing is also welcome.

Any ideas??

Thanks,
J

[Beaumont]

Maybe an oxymoron? Like "compulsory volunteers"...?

[Cubby]

Hi everyone

I'm looking for an English word. I know what it means, but I can't remember what it is!

It's one word that means you can't say things like "quite dead" because it's either 'dead' or it's not.

To use the word in this example, I think you'd say "you can't have any ___ of 'dead'", so I'm guessing it's a noun in this case but an adjective describing the same thing is also welcome.

Any ideas??

Thanks,
J

The word you're looking for might be "absolute". The word in the example might be "characterizations".

Of course, according to Miracle Max in The Princess Bride, "there's different kinds of dead".

[J]

I don't think they were the words I'm looking for (I heard someone say it on the radio) but they are good anyway!

The word is quite specific I think. It describes the way you can say to what extent something is... like you can say it's quite cold, very expensive, a little strange, but you can't say something is... trying to think of examples... you can't say a fact is extremely correct (because it's either correct or it's not), or... a person laying on his/her death bed is kind of alive (not in the sense of "lively" - because s/he's either alive or not), see what I mean? So in the same way the guy on the radio said it, you'd say "you can't have any ____ of correct". But I like your examples anyway, they give me a word to use in cases like this!

[ANTHOS]

I didn't know such a word existed and now I'm dying to know what it is!
Keep us posted!

[Raskolnikov]

degree, degrees of

[leelou]

i guess that was it!!

[ANTHOS]

I think that J is looking for a grammatical term, to describe the concept.

A word like negation or privation, or something else that sounds clever like that

[Xavier[vp]]

Maybe graduation ?

[J]

I don't believe so, Xav or Raskol

You might be right Anthos, I think it does describe the concept. But you are right that it sounds clever

At least we're finding out what the word isn't... it might just take a few hundred thousand more tries to get to the one I'm looking for

[Raskolnikov]

Grammatical term? Maybe something to do with "adverbs" to express degrees. Perhaps adjunct/adjunction?

The words in your examples are often called intensifiers. Could this be the word?

[J]

Hmm maybe you could say "You can't use an intensifier with 'dead'" ?
It's not a grammatical term like one of the parts of speech