1 00:00:01,800 --> 00:00:06,800 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey 2 00:00:06,880 --> 00:00:11,520 Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren vog Obam here, It's possibly crossed your 3 00:00:11,520 --> 00:00:15,360 Speaker 1: mind at some point when you've heard a word like say, disgruntled, 4 00:00:15,960 --> 00:00:18,720 Speaker 1: you might have asked yourself, has anyone ever been just 5 00:00:19,079 --> 00:00:23,720 Speaker 1: grunt old? Is it possible for one to gruntle? Words 6 00:00:23,840 --> 00:00:26,520 Speaker 1: like this, which are only used in the negative and 7 00:00:26,640 --> 00:00:31,280 Speaker 1: not the positive, are sometimes informally called lonely negatives or 8 00:00:31,560 --> 00:00:37,000 Speaker 1: unpaired words. They're common words like incessant, disheveled, and ineffable. 9 00:00:37,520 --> 00:00:40,320 Speaker 1: There are plenty of them in modern English. But are 10 00:00:40,320 --> 00:00:44,320 Speaker 1: they lonely because they've lost a former positive mate or 11 00:00:44,479 --> 00:00:48,040 Speaker 1: are they merely solitary words doing an adequate job on 12 00:00:48,080 --> 00:00:52,920 Speaker 1: their own without meeting an opposite to prop them up. First, 13 00:00:53,159 --> 00:00:56,800 Speaker 1: let's look at what makes these words negative. Linguistically speaking, 14 00:00:58,240 --> 00:01:00,920 Speaker 1: before the article this episode is based on How Stuff Works, 15 00:01:00,960 --> 00:01:04,240 Speaker 1: spoke with Dr Jenny Letterer, an associate professor of linguistics 16 00:01:04,240 --> 00:01:08,320 Speaker 1: at San Francisco State University. She explained that many words 17 00:01:08,319 --> 00:01:13,440 Speaker 1: in English are multi morphemic, multi meaning many and morpheme 18 00:01:13,640 --> 00:01:17,839 Speaker 1: meaning a linguistic unit. So an example of a multi 19 00:01:17,840 --> 00:01:22,240 Speaker 1: morphemic word is a plural like cats. You add the 20 00:01:22,240 --> 00:01:26,720 Speaker 1: plural morpheme s to the singular noun morpheme cat to 21 00:01:26,840 --> 00:01:30,920 Speaker 1: mean more than one singular cat. Another type of multi 22 00:01:30,959 --> 00:01:34,920 Speaker 1: morphemic word is a negative created by adding a negative 23 00:01:34,959 --> 00:01:38,800 Speaker 1: prefix morpheme such as un to an adjective morpheme such 24 00:01:38,840 --> 00:01:44,280 Speaker 1: as happy to get its opposite unhappy. Both of these, 25 00:01:44,480 --> 00:01:47,760 Speaker 1: the plural s and the negative un, are what's called 26 00:01:47,920 --> 00:01:52,360 Speaker 1: derivational morphemes. Adding them to a root word like cat 27 00:01:52,600 --> 00:01:56,360 Speaker 1: or happy changes the meaning of the root or derives 28 00:01:56,400 --> 00:01:59,480 Speaker 1: a new meaning. We form new words this way all 29 00:01:59,520 --> 00:02:02,840 Speaker 1: the time. Say you searched for something on the internet 30 00:02:02,920 --> 00:02:04,760 Speaker 1: and you want to look up the same thing again. 31 00:02:05,320 --> 00:02:08,200 Speaker 1: It's easy enough in English to add the prefix red, 32 00:02:08,480 --> 00:02:11,600 Speaker 1: which means again, to the verb google, which is a 33 00:02:11,680 --> 00:02:14,960 Speaker 1: Newish word in itself. So you can say you're going 34 00:02:15,000 --> 00:02:18,160 Speaker 1: to re google something and the person you're talking to 35 00:02:18,240 --> 00:02:21,959 Speaker 1: would understand, even if they've never heard that exact word before. 36 00:02:23,680 --> 00:02:26,840 Speaker 1: Let Over said, we're in a hyper accelerated period of 37 00:02:26,840 --> 00:02:31,240 Speaker 1: word creation. Even our spelling is changing. She noted that 38 00:02:31,280 --> 00:02:35,240 Speaker 1: other languages have even more derivational morphologies than English, with 39 00:02:35,280 --> 00:02:37,919 Speaker 1: more ways to change the meanings of words. By adding 40 00:02:37,960 --> 00:02:43,560 Speaker 1: multiple prefixes and suffixes to the root word. Okay, but 41 00:02:43,680 --> 00:02:47,160 Speaker 1: back to lonely negatives. And now that we know how 42 00:02:47,160 --> 00:02:49,360 Speaker 1: these words are formed, we can look at how we 43 00:02:49,400 --> 00:02:52,720 Speaker 1: got them. Many of these lonely negatives came to English 44 00:02:52,800 --> 00:02:57,680 Speaker 1: through French via Latin. Take a word like ineffable, which 45 00:02:57,760 --> 00:03:03,160 Speaker 1: describes something that's indescribable or beyond understanding, something too vast 46 00:03:03,320 --> 00:03:07,280 Speaker 1: to be put into words or understood. It was directly 47 00:03:07,320 --> 00:03:10,720 Speaker 1: borrowed into English from French in the Middle Ages. It 48 00:03:10,840 --> 00:03:14,200 Speaker 1: was the exact same word, no changes in spelling. French 49 00:03:14,240 --> 00:03:18,280 Speaker 1: acquired it from the Latin word nabilis, which meant unutterable. 50 00:03:20,200 --> 00:03:22,560 Speaker 1: The first known use of this word in English was 51 00:03:22,639 --> 00:03:26,560 Speaker 1: in fifteen forty, in the phrase Oh God of high pity, 52 00:03:26,840 --> 00:03:31,320 Speaker 1: immense and ineffable. It arrived in English complete with the 53 00:03:31,320 --> 00:03:35,280 Speaker 1: prefix and the negative meaning. Letter says that words like 54 00:03:35,320 --> 00:03:38,880 Speaker 1: this come into the language quote already glued into place, 55 00:03:39,160 --> 00:03:41,960 Speaker 1: and there's no incentive to take off the negative prefix. 56 00:03:43,120 --> 00:03:45,320 Speaker 1: In other words, it filled a hole in the English 57 00:03:45,400 --> 00:03:48,240 Speaker 1: language as it was, and we didn't need affable as 58 00:03:48,280 --> 00:03:52,440 Speaker 1: its opposite, not that people didn't try. The first known 59 00:03:52,520 --> 00:03:55,560 Speaker 1: use of effable was in sixteen sixty eight, so more 60 00:03:55,600 --> 00:03:58,520 Speaker 1: than two hundred years after ineffable had already been in use. 61 00:03:59,200 --> 00:04:01,360 Speaker 1: In the United States, ineffable had a bit of a 62 00:04:01,360 --> 00:04:04,920 Speaker 1: heyday in the eighteen seventies, but effable never really caught on. 63 00:04:06,360 --> 00:04:09,720 Speaker 1: Letterer explained the positive could have dropped out because there 64 00:04:09,720 --> 00:04:15,120 Speaker 1: were much more frequent synonyms in use, meaning basically, we 65 00:04:15,240 --> 00:04:18,560 Speaker 1: have lots of ways to describe something that's describable. What 66 00:04:18,680 --> 00:04:21,040 Speaker 1: we didn't have was a word for something too big 67 00:04:21,080 --> 00:04:23,680 Speaker 1: for words, and the French had a word ready for 68 00:04:23,720 --> 00:04:28,720 Speaker 1: the borrowing. Not only do we invent new words thanks 69 00:04:28,760 --> 00:04:31,920 Speaker 1: to morphemes, but we also change the meanings of words 70 00:04:31,920 --> 00:04:36,040 Speaker 1: over time. This is called semantic drift, and it's led 71 00:04:36,040 --> 00:04:40,200 Speaker 1: to some of these lonely negatives not having positives. This 72 00:04:40,279 --> 00:04:43,479 Speaker 1: is the case for a word like disheveled, which means 73 00:04:43,560 --> 00:04:47,320 Speaker 1: being in a state of disorder or disarray. It too, 74 00:04:47,360 --> 00:04:50,559 Speaker 1: comes to English from French, where the negative prefix discs 75 00:04:50,760 --> 00:04:55,040 Speaker 1: was added to chivul, which meant hair. For a long 76 00:04:55,120 --> 00:04:58,119 Speaker 1: time it did refer just to the state of one's 77 00:04:58,160 --> 00:05:02,160 Speaker 1: hair or hat. In fourteen o five, Jeffrey Chaucer wrote 78 00:05:02,160 --> 00:05:04,880 Speaker 1: about a man who was disheveled save for his cap. 79 00:05:05,240 --> 00:05:10,679 Speaker 1: Riding bare headed, having unbound hair and only a cap 80 00:05:10,800 --> 00:05:14,400 Speaker 1: rather than a proper hat was very casual in Chaucer's day, 81 00:05:14,839 --> 00:05:18,680 Speaker 1: the equivalent of wearing your pajamas on an airplane. In 82 00:05:18,720 --> 00:05:21,400 Speaker 1: the six hundred years since he wrote The Canterbury Tales, 83 00:05:21,760 --> 00:05:24,520 Speaker 1: the word has drifted away from its original English meaning 84 00:05:24,760 --> 00:05:27,320 Speaker 1: and can now refer to a person's whole state, not 85 00:05:27,520 --> 00:05:31,240 Speaker 1: just their head. Messy clothes, makeup, or hair. Any of 86 00:05:31,279 --> 00:05:35,560 Speaker 1: it adds up to being disheveled today, but there's no 87 00:05:35,920 --> 00:05:40,320 Speaker 1: disheveled or heviled. Originally, that would have just meant having 88 00:05:40,600 --> 00:05:44,520 Speaker 1: orderly hair. English didn't need that word like it apparently 89 00:05:44,680 --> 00:05:50,240 Speaker 1: needed disheveled. Larier said, so many new objects and activities 90 00:05:50,320 --> 00:05:52,880 Speaker 1: come into our lives as culture evolves, we have to 91 00:05:52,920 --> 00:05:56,760 Speaker 1: have new words. They're often based on old words, using compounds, 92 00:05:56,839 --> 00:06:00,840 Speaker 1: blends or derivations. Without them would be talked like Shakespeare. 93 00:06:02,560 --> 00:06:05,640 Speaker 1: Let's bring this back around to our earlier question, is 94 00:06:05,680 --> 00:06:09,279 Speaker 1: it possible to be gruntled? The answer is not really. 95 00:06:10,400 --> 00:06:13,800 Speaker 1: A disgruntle was first used in eighteen sixty two. A 96 00:06:13,920 --> 00:06:17,560 Speaker 1: gruntle comes from Middle English, the now grunt, meaning the 97 00:06:17,760 --> 00:06:22,800 Speaker 1: snorty sound combined with the diminutive morphine. Put it together 98 00:06:22,960 --> 00:06:26,160 Speaker 1: and you get basically little grunting sound. And that's what 99 00:06:26,200 --> 00:06:28,560 Speaker 1: gruntle meant when it was first used as early as 100 00:06:28,600 --> 00:06:32,159 Speaker 1: fourteen hundred, but usually when writing about pigs or people 101 00:06:32,279 --> 00:06:37,400 Speaker 1: sounding like pigs. It wasn't until fIF that gruntle was 102 00:06:37,480 --> 00:06:41,080 Speaker 1: used as a verb to mean to complain. Then in 103 00:06:41,960 --> 00:06:47,599 Speaker 1: two disgruntled pops up, meaning ill humored or disgusted. So 104 00:06:47,800 --> 00:06:50,960 Speaker 1: it's not the opposite of anything, and it didn't really 105 00:06:50,960 --> 00:06:55,240 Speaker 1: take off in popularity until the twenty first century. If 106 00:06:55,279 --> 00:06:57,560 Speaker 1: you're interested in learning more about the usage of words 107 00:06:57,600 --> 00:06:59,760 Speaker 1: in the United States, check out the corpus of his 108 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:04,120 Speaker 1: Oracle American English. This database can provide the frequency and 109 00:07:04,160 --> 00:07:07,120 Speaker 1: context of just about any word, broken down by decade. 110 00:07:07,680 --> 00:07:12,840 Speaker 1: Other unpaired words you might want to investigate include debunk, reckless, disgusted, 111 00:07:13,120 --> 00:07:21,880 Speaker 1: and indelible. Today's episode is based on the article disheveled 112 00:07:21,920 --> 00:07:25,280 Speaker 1: disgruntled Why are some words only used in negative form? 113 00:07:25,360 --> 00:07:28,040 Speaker 1: On how stuff works dot Com? Written by Kristen Hall Geisler. 114 00:07:28,480 --> 00:07:30,760 Speaker 1: Brainstuff is production of I Heart Radio in partnership with 115 00:07:30,760 --> 00:07:33,080 Speaker 1: how stuff works dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Clang. 116 00:07:33,680 --> 00:07:36,280 Speaker 1: Four more podcasts from my heart Radio. Visit the iHeart 117 00:07:36,320 --> 00:07:38,960 Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your 118 00:07:38,960 --> 00:07:39,680 Speaker 1: favorite shows.