I often wondered when I
cursed,
Often feared where I would be --
Wondered where she’d
yield her love,
When I yield, so will she.
I would her will be
pitied!
Cursed be love! She pitied me …
This so-called “square poem” by Lewis Carroll appeared several decades after his death in 1898. It contains many hallmarks of Carroll’s love of wordplay.
Its six lines each contain six words that together form a word square that can be read both horizontally and vertically: reading downwards, the first word of each line reads the same as the first line itself, the second word of each line reproduces the second line of the poem, and so on. Try it.
By the way, I'll leave it up to you to figure out the title of this blog entry. I bet its not what you think. Look it up if you dare.
A logophile is a person who loves words. Do you love words? I do. As a language arts teacher, I am happy delving into the mysterious world of etymology – the study of the origins of words. If you like words and everything they entail like me, I want to talk with you today about “the smallest sequence of phonemes that can be uttered in isolation with objective or practical meaning.” Or words … just plain old words.
As an introduction for this blog entry, you may like to listen to this Ted clip of language historian Anne Curzan speaking about how people use words … and by how all of this changes. In this clip, Curzan gives a charming look at the humans behind dictionaries, and the choices they make. Click the link below to listen to Curzan's "What Makes a Word 'Real'" talk. (Highly recommended)
https://www.ted.com/talks/anne_curzan_what_makes_a_word_real?referrer=playlist-words_words_words
Are you ever at a loss for words? Something in your brain just won't spark a connection and allow you to speak or write. Did you know that words, themselves, can be “lost”?
There is actually an online “Compendium of Lost Words,” a component of The Phrontistery. A phrontistery (from the Greek phrontistes 'thinker') is meant to be a thinking-place for reflection and intellectual stimulation.
The Compendium lists over 400 of the rarest modern English words – in fact, ones that have been entirely absent from the Internet, including all online dictionaries, until now. The administrator encourages an appreciation of the flexibility of English vocabulary. Click on this link to take you to the four main Compendium pages, organized alphabetically by word, or on the links for more information about the site: https://phrontistery.info/clw.html.
Lost Positives
Ellen Higgins, Ph.D. – professional writer, editor, researcher, and educator/trainer – introduces us to the world of words, in particular words known as “lost positives.” A lost positive is just that – a word lost to the language once paired with a negative that still exists. Whether its a tendency of our culture towards pessimism or some other unknown stimulus, English seems less apt to use compliments but ever ready to deliver insults.
Let's look at Higgins example of the lost word “gruntled.” Of course, the opposite is the often-used word “disgruntled” meaning “unhappy, annoyed, and disappointed about something.”
Higgins explains …
“In 1999, William Safire (American author, columnist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter) asked in his New York Times On Language column, 'How come you don’t ever hear about gruntled employees? Those of us in the scandal mongering dodge rely heavily on disgruntled former employees for leaks, tips and other often-slanderous leads'
“Safire quotes The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) which defines gruntle as 'to grumble, murmur, complain' and provides a quote from a 1589 sermon by Robert Bruce: 'It becomes us not to have our hearts here gruntling upon this earth.'
“But Joseph Piercy, in the vocabulary book A Word a Day, states that gruntle came from the grunt sounds made by animals, particularly pigs. Piercy provides an example from an early 14th century fantastical book, The Travels of John Mandeville, in which natives near the Garden of Eden look hideous and “gruntle like swine” – a source also noted by O’Conner and Kellerman on grammarphobia.com.”
(Ellen Higgins, Ph.D. “Lost positives and false negatives – disgruntled and inflammable.” Writing Essentials by Ellen. writingessentialsbyellen.com.)
Here is an example from the 1931 W. P. Webb book The Great Plains: “They were gruntled with a good meal and good conversation.” Despite appearances of gruntled, the word is far from common and even MS Word marks it with the red squiggly “misspelling” underline.
Word History Note:
According to merriam-webster.com, the word disgruntle has been around since 1682 with the meaning “to make ill-humored or discontented,” similar to the earlier gruntle, “which is why gruntled wasn’t originally the opposite [false positive] of disgruntled.” Dis- is commonly a negative prefix (as in the words disability, disbar, discontent, dislike, disown). But in the case of disgruntle (and also discombobulate), dis- is an intensifying or amplifying prefix: dis- plus the older word gruntled (meaning “to grumble”).
Gruntled, notes merriam-webster.com, in the older sense of “to grumble” is now used only in British dialect. However, in the 20th-century, gruntled began appearing in an upbeat sense, meaning ‘”to put in a good humor” or “pleasing, satisfied, contented.” In what several sources call a “back formation” from disgruntle, the false positive gruntle is “born again” (OED, merriam-webster.com, New Fowler’s).
(Ellen Higgins, Ph.D. “Lost positives and false negatives – disgruntled and inflammable.” Writing Essentials by Ellen. writingessentialsbyellen.com.)
I bet you didn't know the history of words could be so complicated. Are you disgruntled or gruntled yet with this entry? No matter, let me continue, please. I promise not to draw things out too long.
In the site “World Wide Words,” Michael Quinion gives us lots of word information and investigation into the language. Check out the site for interesting reading. Find it here: https://www.worldwidewords.org/index.htm.
Kempt
Kempt comes from the Old English word kemb, “comb.” It seems to have gone out of use about 1600 but to have been reintroduced about 1860. The form unkempt began to be used about 1580 to mean “language that was inelegant or unrefined.” Incidentally, the root form of kemb seems to come from a Germanic form which meant “tooth,” so a comb is named for its teeth; the modern form uncombed appeared about 1560.
Ruly
Ruly, is an adjective formed about 1400 from rule (as in rule of law), to mean “law-abiding; disciplined; orderly.” Someone unruly was ungovernable or disorderly; the modern sense is a weakening of this.
Gainly
Someone ungainly is now “awkward, clumsy, ungraceful,” a sense which developed about 1600; its opposite gainly, never very common, was formed sometime after 1300 from the adjective gain, meaning “straight; near.” This was used especially in the phrase the gainest way, meaning the shortest, most direct route, but it quickly took on a figurative sense when applied to people of “well-disposed; kindly”, and of “useful; convenient” for objects; the root form is also the source of our words again and against.
Wieldy
Unwieldy comes from an Old English verb wield, derived from the same Indo-European source meaning “to be strong” as the Latin word from which we get valient. It variously meant “rule; govern; command; possess” and “to control; manage; deal with successfully”. Its adjective wieldy was derived from this latter sense and applied to persons, not things, in the sense “capable of wielding one’s body or weapon; active, agile, nimble.”
Couth
The word couth was once common. It was a form of the Old English word cunnan, “well-known; familiar” (related to the modern German kennen). So uncouth meant “unknown; unfamiliar.” The positive form couth went out of use in the 16th century except in Scotland. It was re-introduced in 1896 by Max Beerbohm as a deliberate and humorous back-formation from uncouth but has never really become established again in mainstream English.
Abled
Disabled was formed in the 16th century from the verb disable, but the corresponding adjective abled seems not to have been used at that time. It was created by back-formation in the US in the early eighties by disabled people to refer to those not so affected and which became part of euphemistic phrases like differently abled.
Words Seldom Used
Many other words have unpaired words, formed by removing the negating prefix, but are also uncommon. They include disarray, immaculate, inadvertent, inevitable, innocent, inscrutable, unflappable, and unrequited.
I think its interesting that innocent traces its history to the present participle of nocere "to harm," from nok-s-, suffixed form of PIE root nek- (1) "death." Nocent has become a rare adjective meaning “harmful; injurious” as in “nocent chemical waste and other toxins.”
And, by the way, the English maculate means marked with spots : blotched.
Legendary comedian Jack Winter begins his very short New Yorker story “How I Met My Wife” this way:
“It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate. I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way. I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I’d have to make bones about it, since I was travelling cognito.”
Comedian George Carlin is known for his way with words. Carlin once asked, “If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn’t it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted?”
George Carlin has a hilarious bit on words changing in a changed world in which he describes the sterilization of the American language. Click here to take a listen. Please enjoy but if an expletive or two offends you, opt out. From the 1990 special Doin' it Again ...
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