If someone, who is not grateful, is "ungrateful", why is he called an "ingrate", and not "ungrate"?
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That’s English for you! (And also French and…...)
Because he expresses ingratitude instead of ungratitude.
Good question.
Like @janbb‘s answer. Modern English has plenty of origins, and can be pretty complicated.
English is annoying and illogical a lot of the time. I once saw a statistic that 20% of English is irregular, or exceptions, or something like that.
Ingrate is a noun “He is an ingrate.”
Ungrateful is an adjective “He is ungrateful.”
Because they entered the language separately. “Ungrateful” is “un-” + “grateful”, “ingrate” is borrowed directly from the Latin word “ingratus” meaning “unpleasant” or “disagreeable”.
Plus, and “ungrate” is a wedge of cheese not suitable for grating.
^ I thought it was just when you compressed the bits back together…
^ Ah yes, reconstruction.
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