Gruntled and Disgruntled

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Nathan in Virginia Beach.

Hi, Nathan. Welcome to the show.

Hi, Nathan.

I’m in the Navy.

We had a huge argument in class the other day over the word gruntled, if it’s a word.

Because I think we’ve all heard disgruntled before,

Saying that I’m disgruntled by this or something.

My argument was that gruntled had to be a word,

Because where would it be disgruntled?

The opposite of something have come from, if that makes sense.

And you say this was a huge argument?

They were screaming and everything going on.

It was a catastrophe.

Oh, my goodness.

My friend said there’s no way the word gruntal is a word.

So I was hoping you guys would be able to shed some light on it.

Oh, boy. Wow.

Well, I think we can probably satisfy both of you all.

Technically, if you look in some dictionaries, you will find the word gruntled as you used it, meaning pleased or happy.

But disgruntled is what we call an unpaired word.

There are a lot of words in English that look like they should have something that is their direct opposite, like disgruntled versus gruntled.

Well, for example, in your class, it sounds like the discussion got kind of unruly,

And then you all became ruly again, right?

Yes, that makes sense.

But you almost never, ever, ever, ever hear the word ruly.

Right, exactly.

Yeah, so unruly is another example of an unpaired word.

So technically, Nathan, if you look in the Oxford English Dictionary,

You will find the word gruntled defined as pleased, satisfied, or contented.

But we’ve got a little asterisk here because it’s kind of a jokey word.

And it came after, well after the word disgruntled, meaning unhappy.

Because what’s weird about the word disgruntled is that that dis, that D-I-S prefix,

Doesn’t function the way you usually see that prefix functioning.

In this case, it’s actually an intensifier.

And so disgruntled means you’re really grunting, you’re really grumbling.

So it doesn’t mean not gruntled.

Yeah, gruntled came later.

Does that make sense?

Yes, absolutely.

Your basic position is correct.

It is a word, but your argument was off.

That’s a good way to put it.

I suppose it would be a strange, it doesn’t exactly sound right to be like,

Oh, like if someone gave me a high five or said something nice about me,

I’d be like, oh, I’m very gruntled by this.

Exactly.

It doesn’t exactly make sense.

Exactly.

Well, you’re giving me a lot to think about.

All right.

Well, cool.

We’re good.

You know, I’ve got to say, a room full of people arguing about language, yes, please.

Invite us.

It’s a room we want to be in.

Yes, of course.

Oh, of course.

We’d love to have you.

A bunch of sailors in a room with A Way with Words.

That sounds great.

That does.

Who wins that argument?

The CEO?

The top-ranked guy in the room is the one that wins, right?

Well, I’m going to say it was me when I tell them I was on this radio show.

We’ll see what they have to say about that.

All right.

Thanks for calling.

We really appreciate it, Nathan.

Yes.

Thank you so much.

You two have a wonderful day.

All right.

See you.

Bye-bye.

So you were talking about unpaired opposites or also known as orphaned negatives, and there’s a ton of those.

You mentioned ruly and unruly.

We have disambiguate and ambiguate.

Kempt.

Kempt and unkempt, feckless and feckful.

My favorite, though, is inert and ert.

Yeah.

But you also mentioned that dis is sometimes an intensifier, which throws people.

And there are just a few words in English, and most of them are rare.

The rare ones are dissever and disannul.

But also some people include disrupt and disturb, where you’re intensifying the turbulence with disturb.

Of course.

And you’re intensifying the eruption with disruption.

Of course.

I never thought about that.

Right?

Yeah.

Interesting, because those prefixes are not all the same necessarily,

Even though they might look the same and be spelled the same.

Oh, that’s really interesting.

I’m also thinking of, you mentioned inert.

Yeah.

Is that what you said?

And I was thinking of inept, too.

Oh, that’s very ept of you.

And I would be remiss in mentioning, because we will get a lot of emails about it,

You must Google the poem A Very Descript Man by J.H. Parker,

Which is a ton of these and a really funny composition.

Cool.

We should put a link to that on our website.

Absolutely.

If you and your coworkers are arguing over language, call us and talk about it.

877-929-9673.