{"id":10831,"date":"2014-07-30T10:22:12","date_gmt":"2014-07-30T14:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/?p=10831"},"modified":"2014-07-30T10:40:54","modified_gmt":"2014-07-30T14:40:54","slug":"ruthful-funct-and-doleless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/ruthful-funct-and-doleless\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruthful, funct and doleless"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Crazy<\/a>Why can’t someone be clueful, only clueless?<\/strong> Hapful, not simply hapless? Aweless instead of just awful? Ruthful not merely ruthless? Doleless, not just doleful? Gormful, not just gormless?<\/p>\n

We can be thoughtful or thoughtless, careful or careless, mindful and mindless. Why not ruthful and gormful? Why not the qualities of ruthiness, gormliness and doleliness?<\/p>\n

Can we be kempt or just unkempt? Couth or just uncouth? Gruntled or just disgruntled? Shevelled or just dishevelled?*<\/span> Maculate or just immaculate? Domitable, or just indomitable? Ruly or just unruly? Can we come ravelled instead of just unravelled? Can we member a corpse instead of just dismember it? Can a Wikipedia entry be an ambiguation rather than a title=”Wikipedia” href=”http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wikipedia:Disambiguation” target=”_blank”>disambiguation<\/a>?<\/p>\n

If we’re not disappointed are we appointed? If not distressed are we <\/a<>tressed? If not discombobulated are we combobulated? If not nonplussed, are we plussed? If we’re not impeccable, are we just peccable? Can we be chalant rather than nonchalant? If we don’t want to dismantle something, can we mantle it? If we don’t disfigure a painting, do we figure it? If it’s not inevitable, is it evitable? If an event doesn’t unnerve us, is it nerving? If it’s not defunct is it funct? If an online hoax isn’t debunked, can it be bunked instead?<\/span><\/p>\n

Can we be placcable, effable, trepid, ert, ane and feckful? can I rupt the proceedings? Can any love be requited? Can any heroes be sung? If I don’t dismiss you, do I miss you? If you stop your incessant chatter, does it become cessant? If I’m not an imbecile in your eyes, am I a becile? Can a tool be wieldy?<\/p>\n

Some of these odd-seeming words have<\/em> been in our language, just fallen out of favour or replaced by other terms. Ruthful, the Word Detective<\/a> tells us, was in common use in the 12th until the 14th century, although it hung around as an anachronism until the 19th century.**<\/span> Ruly was coined around 1400 CE, according to World Wide Words.<\/a> Tools could never be wieldy, but persons could be, in the sense of being nimble (same source). <\/p>\n

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Hap is (according to David Crystal<\/a> in his book, Stories of English<\/a>), one of the few Scandinavian words that survived in English from the Norse invasions of the British isles, before the first millennium (curiously, the third person pronouns, them, their and they<\/em> are also among the remaining survivors).<\/p>\n

Hap meant luck or fortune. It appears as the root of many English words, according to the English Exchange<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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