Isn't the word "uninstall" wrong?
I've never understood this. Why is the proper usage "uninstall"? You can't actually "unin" something at all and this isn't that case with most (all?) other use cases. Examples:
- You make someone sane, but you don't uninsane them.
- You make something accessible but never uninaccessible something.
- You can make something adequate but never uninadequate something.
- Insane is the opposite of sane, from Latin in- “not” and sanus.
- Inaccessible is the opposite of accessible, from Latin in- “not” and accessibilis.
- Inadequate is the opposite of adequate, from in- and adequate.
- Install is not the opposite of stall. It comes from Latin installare, from in- in the meaning “in” (not “not”) and stallum.
Uninstall is not a double negative. Install simply happens to begin with an in, much like insert (not the opposite of sert), invert (not the opposite of vert), invent (not the opposite of vent), indicate (not the opposite of dicate), include (not the opposite of clude), etc.
Edit: here are a few more words beginning with unin-:
- from in-: unintentional, unindexed, uninclined, uninfected, uninquiring, uninjected, uninitiate, uninformative, unincluded, unindent, unintuitive, uninvitingly
- from inter-: uninteresting, unintelligent, unintelligible, uninterpretable, uninterpolated...
Courtesy of Wiktionary.
What Reg says. I'd like to add that you are not the only one who is reluctant to use "uninstall" for one reason or another, as I have heard similar complaints elsewere. I think there are two other things that add to this dislike:
- "Un" followed by "in" sounds almost like a duplicate syllable, which generally doesn't sound good.
- If you were to negate a prefixed verb in Latin or needed a verb with opposite meaning, you would usually not simply add another prefix, but rather replace the old suffix, as in increase–decrease, inhale–exhale, convert–revert, etc. Using unin- clearly marks the word as a hybrid construction. Note that hybrid constructions go further than mere Anglicising: instead of only adjusting the sound of the foreign word a bit and inflecting it, as in Anglicisation, whole new dictionary articles are being created. Of course we use hybrid constructions all the time, and a great many now feel completely natural; but a newfangled odour might still cling to some newly formed ones, though it remains unclear why some are immediately acceptable while others are not (like unrevertableness). I think prefixes are generally harder to swallow than suffixes, like -able.
Probably owing in part to these considerations, alternatives have been proposed, like deinstall and simply remove, which I think are both acceptable, and even exstall, which nobody would understand. While I have some sympathy with those who resist new words, there comes a time when we need to give up; I think that time has come for uninstall. It is still not my favourite word of all times, but I won't stop using it now. At least it is not gaudy, like many new words from the advertising business.
It's un-install, not unin-stall!
Shouldn't it more logically be disinstall by analogy with disinvite, disinfect, disinherit, disinter? But it's too late... the software developers have already invented the word; we can't disinvent it.