by zbicyclist

Saturday Morning OYs April 4, 2026

Not really an OY, but a wordplay. It reminds me of words that seem like they should have an opposite, but don’t.

You can be disgruntled, but not gruntled, for example.

Or convoluted, but not voluted;

disgusted but not gusted;

disturbed but not turbed;

preposterous but not postpreterous.

22 Comments

  3. Unknown's avatar

    Hilburn has never made tea, or seen a tea bag, apparently? The kettle would not contain chamomile or any other tea. It’s used to boil water. And those things in the chairs do not resemble tea bags at all.

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  5. Unknown's avatar

    I’d think a stripper in a world of teas would be loose-leaf.

    Wikipedia has a whole article-full of unpaired words: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unpaired_word

    According to that list, “Disgusted” was imported from French without its counterpart.

    Other origins: “Disgruntled” and “disturb” use ‘dis’ as an intensifier, not a negation; “convolute” uses the same Latin root as “revolve” (volvo, ‘to roll’); and “preposterous” just means “the hind part before the front; inverted” (the inverse would probably be more like “postanterous” but would probably mean the same thing).

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  6. Unknown's avatar

    And if you were tempted to say “We have a word category of prepositions so why not postpositions?” you’d better hold your fire. Postposition is indeed the technical term for a word which acts like a preposition but comes after its object. Common in some languages, but probably not seen in English — unless you can make a case for ago.

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  7. Unknown's avatar

    “I Dreamt of Couth,” by Willard R. Espy:

    I dreamt of a corrigible, nocuous youth,
    Gainly, gruntled, and kempt;
    A mayed and a sidious fellow, forsooth,
    Ordinate, effable, shevelled, ept, couth;
    A delible fellow I dreamt.

    I dreamt that bulating the youth would dulate
    In a peccable, ferior vein.
    I’m turbed that he’s funct and chalant, and I’ll state
    I’d be poverished having his dain.

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  10. Unknown's avatar

    You have to be careful saying “postposition”. It could draw Gearhead Gertie fans. (There must be some)

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  12. Unknown's avatar

    Sorry, that doesn’t really count — the object of with does not immediately precede it. (It’s the phrase a preposition, and the fact that it does not come right after with does show there are other interesting things going on, which would be described different ways in different theoretical frameworks — but none of them involve saying that with has become a postposition.)

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  13. Unknown's avatar

    I would say that it isn’t clear at all that a tea kettle is represented, rather than a teapot. It’s largely a matter of material, metal versus ceramic. Shape is often very similar.

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  17. Unknown's avatar

    It’s funny to me that convoluted is on the list. It’s the Latin for “has twists and turns.” (OK, it might not be good classical Latin.) That is what it still means.

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  18. Unknown's avatar

    The thing about a tea kettle is you don’t put tea in it and you don’t make tea in it. It is a water kettle. You boil the water and then pour it into the teapot or teacup which will then brew the tea for you. Or you could boil the water for Cup O’ Noodles (Pot Noodle in Britain) and call it a noodle kettle.

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