And the opposite is?
March 31st 2007 09:55
Some years ago I wrote a column about the Notes and Queries books, after I’d found the following poem in one:
I know a little man both ept and ert,
An intro? extro? No, he's just a vert.
Shevelled and couth and kempt, pecunious, ane.
His image trudes upon the ceptive brain.
When life turns sipid and the mind is traught,
The spirit soars as I would sist it ought.
Chalantly then, like any gainly goof,
My digent self is sertive, choate, loof.
It’s a play on all those strange words we have in the language which don’t seem to have opposites. There are so many of them that someone else wrote this bit of doggerel, using the same approach.
I dreamt of a corrigible nocuous youth,
Gainly, gruntled and kempt;
A mayed and sidious fellow forsooth –
Ordinate, effable, shevelled, ept, couth;
A delible fellow I dreamt.
I’ve used the word couth for many years, since it easily implies the opposite of uncouth, but I haven’t yet managed to incorporate too many of the others into my daily vocab.
I know a little man both ept and ert,
An intro? extro? No, he's just a vert.
Shevelled and couth and kempt, pecunious, ane.
His image trudes upon the ceptive brain.
When life turns sipid and the mind is traught,
The spirit soars as I would sist it ought.
Chalantly then, like any gainly goof,
My digent self is sertive, choate, loof.
It’s a play on all those strange words we have in the language which don’t seem to have opposites. There are so many of them that someone else wrote this bit of doggerel, using the same approach.
I dreamt of a corrigible nocuous youth,
Gainly, gruntled and kempt;
A mayed and sidious fellow forsooth –
Ordinate, effable, shevelled, ept, couth;
A delible fellow I dreamt.
I’ve used the word couth for many years, since it easily implies the opposite of uncouth, but I haven’t yet managed to incorporate too many of the others into my daily vocab.
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