Lori from North Georgia asks whether a person with a sloppy appearance is unkempt or unkept. Unkept is a word for things not preserved or retained such as an unkept promise or an unkept house, but a person who looks disheveled is far more commonly...
Nathan, a sailor at the United States Navy base in Norfolk, Virginia, reports a vigorous dispute among his fellow servicemembers: Is gruntled a word? Nathan feels gruntled must be a word, arguing that it’s clearly the opposite of disgruntled. But...
A listener in Cambridge, Wisconsin, says her mother, who is of Irish descent, used to tell her children to wash their hair so it wouldn’t be streely. This word derives from Irish for “unkempt,” and perhaps ultimately from a Gaelic...
