Wednesday, December 01, 2004

A question of vocabulary

I've noticed a trend in many of my readings over the past few weeks: people are pretty disgruntled.

Which got me thinking why the opposite doesn't ever seem to be true. Why can't we be gruntled as well?

Please feel free to discuss. This will not be included on the exam.

10 comments:

Joan said...

I was gruntled once...but then I took some Ex Lax and I was better. HA HA HA!

Sorry, Carmi! I couldn't resist! ;-)

(My inner 8 year old boy was just screaming to come out!)

Jack Steiner said...

It is kind of similar to being discombobulated, you never hear about being combobulated.

Canuckeh said...

Maybe people are disgruntled because they're frustrated that they can't be gruntled. I tried once but I really hurt myself.

Dean said...

I think I read something somewhere about gruntling. Some person with too much time on his or her hands tracked it down, and there was a real word used in the Middle Ages or something.

Or maybe I'm thinking of the word 'phlogiston'. Or maybe it was 'ganache'.

Maybe I should just have another beer.

Dean said...

Hey, after getting DISmembered wouldn't you get REmembered?

And if I were to be DISmembered, I suspect that I wouldn't want to live. There's some things a man just can't stand, what?

Jill said...

This week, I shall work on becoming Gusted. Oh, and Membered too. jk

Anonymous said...

Veda (http://vaza.blogspot,etc) says:

Gruntled, as a word unto it's own, is too disgusting sounding. Sounds piggish. How would anyone really use the word in a sentence and not sound like they were referring to something gross?

"The pleasantly gruntled salesperson approached the well-dressed couple as they were looking at the BMW." -C'mon! Pleasantly and Gruntled together feels like a total oximoron if there ever was one!

Amelia said...

I agree with the comment above, gruntled does sound more like something a pig does...I would probably only use on people I didn't like!

carmilevy said...

I love everyone's love of words. I'm going to have to dig up some more fun ones. Any recommendations?

Anonymous said...

Fizgig's always been my most favourite!

-Veda