Question!

[conuly]

Why don't some words have logical opposites? We have unruly and ruthless, but one can't be ruly or ruth (okay, that word DOES exist, it means mercy, but it's obsolete). Very few people use the word canny (just me, as far as I can tell, and only around family).

Or what about words that shouldn't have opposites, but should exist, like gress (progress, ingress, egress, regress, agressive, digress, congress....) meaning... um... okay, I know I could just look up the Latin, but let's say it means "go". I like go. It's a fun game. Or movement! It's a fun movement too!

Or what about whelm? That's a real word. It means to turn over dirt or somesuch. Why do we no longer whelm the garden?

*sighs*

Well, there's my plan for the next year. Introduce new-old words back into the English language, via carefully removing prefixes.

Comments

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

The opposite of disgruntled, probably. Not disgruntled. Gruntled. ;)

[rachelkachel]

I know, that's why I brought it up in a discussion of opposites.

I looked it up, and it turns out that it is in the dictionary, and means to put into a good mood. But the etymology says it's a back-formation from disgruntled, so where did that word come from originally? Apparently, from a Middle English word meaning to grunt or grumble. o.O