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I *said it was recent. onelook often doesn't catch up to me for months!
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Carpal Tunnel
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I * meant, your own list does not have it. There is 'shebeen' and 'shend' but../and I do not keep or remember all the words that pass as I rely on that list. So farewell 'di/sheveled'.
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Carpal Tunnel
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sheveled was posted 4/7/09; I'm only now updating the list for Mar/Apr. <sigh> disfortunately, these things don't happen automagically.
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Carpal Tunnel
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disfortunately 
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Carpal Tunnel
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It should be remembered that the dis- in disheveled and disgruntled is not a negating prefix but an intensive. The OED definition of sheveled (and the definition given in tsuwm's wwftd list) matches that of disheveled. Gruntled is not listed on its own in the OED but it's related to the second meaning of the verb definition for gruntle, 'to grumble, murmur, complain.'
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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the dis-
It means something like 'apart from'. (In Italian s- < Latin dis- has come to be a rather productive prefix.) These affixes go all fuzzy semantic. For example, the tendency in Romance and Germanic languages (at least) to use diminutive suffixes to connote cuteness and friendliness, while the augmentatives are pejorative. (It just dawned on me towonder if the typical prefix sh- in Yiddish is related.)
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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the worthless word for the day (Apr. 8) is: flappable
[back-formation from unflappable (1968)]
lacking self-assurance and self-control: easily upset
(a lost positive of the 2nd kind: jocular)
"The existence of back-formed words such as flappable
from unflappable. In the word-based hypothesis, this
would have to be formed by the prefixation of un- to
an already existing flappable, which contradicts its
back-formation origin."
- Pavol Stekauer, English Word Formation (2000)
(the theory being that unflappable was formed
out of whole cloth; i.e., un- + flap + -able)
""Now that," said Milo.. "is what I call a shrink.
Unflappable, soft-spoken, analyzing everything."
"I don't qualify?"
"You, my friend, are an aberration."
"Too flappable?""
- Jonathan Kellerman, Therapy (2005)
"I'm the sort of flappable American who leaves
everything until the last minute."
- Benjamin Cheever, Strides (2007)
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Carpal Tunnel
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In the case of inept the non-negative word is apt. One of them underwent some sort of vowel shift.
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One of them underwent some sort of vowel shift.
The change happened in Latin before the words migrated to English: aptus 'suitable' and ineptus 'foolish; awkward'. Go blame it on the Romans with their vulgar tongues.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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