How many fecks do you have?
Feckless is a word. It’s a good one actually. Why don’t we use “feck”?
Disgruntled is another good word, but we never hear anyone use gruntled.
What’s up with that? What other words have parts that aren’t used?
English is weird.
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16 Answers
I only wish that I was combobulated as often as I am discombobulated.
I always thought “feckless” meant you don’t give a feckin’ shite.
(Interestingly, “feckless” is of Scottish origin, but it is a dialectal reduction of “effectless”, hence the lack of “feck” as a word on its own).
There are many examples of unpaired words and bound morphemes in English. Sometimes the hypothetical pair or seemingly meaningless constituent part was a valid word at one point, but is now archaic or obsolete, e.g. ruthless. (“ruth” originally meant compassion or pity). And I always wondered who “luke” in “lukewarm” was (it’s actually an obsolete word for “warm” itself, so “lukewarm” is “warm-warm”).
Most of these examples are quite whelming.
Why do people say I’m going to “take a piss” or “take a dump.” Don’t you “leave a piss?”
Feckless is actually an extension of Feck. Feck came from the Scottish meaning “worth” (as one of the meanings. Feckless means worthless. So I have feck.
Mine are separated by gender. There are motherfeckers and fatherfeckers.
There is a philanthropist – very rich guy – who gives a feck. At one point he owned an airline – he gave a flying feck .
It’s like people who say they were overwhelmed or underwhelmed, but never that they were just whelmed.
And saying that a subject or an attitude is simply “blown” (rather than “overblown”) sounds just a bit naughty.
Further to what @Demosthenes states feck is a shortened form of the Scots word effeck (effect with a Scottish accent)
I checked these two at Merriam Webster.
Whelm
transitive verb
1
: to turn (something, such as a dish or vessel) upside down usually to cover something : cover or engulf completely with usually disastrous effect
2
: to overcome in thought or feeling : OVERWHELM
“whelmed with a rush of joy”
—G. A. Wagner
intransitive verb
: to pass or go over something so as to bury or submerge it
Gruntle
transitive verb
: to put in a good humor
“were gruntled with a good meal and good conversation”
—W. P. Webb
Which Came First, gruntle or disgruntle?
“The verb disgruntle, which has been around since 1682, means “to make ill-humored or discontented.” The prefix dis- often means “to do the opposite of,” so people might naturally assume that if there is a disgruntle, there must have first been a gruntle with exactly the opposite meaning. But dis- doesn’t always work that way; in some rare cases it functions instead as an intensifier. Disgruntle developed from this intensifying sense of dis- plus gruntle, an old word (now used only in British dialect) meaning “to grumble.” In the 1920s, a writer humorously used gruntle to mean “to make happy”—in other words, as an antonym of disgruntle. The use caught on. At first gruntle was used only in humorous ways, but people eventually began to use it seriously as well.”
“I am invincible, I can’t be vinced.”
A line from Stargate Atlantis. Makes me chuckle every time.
I looked all around and could not find one – and I pride myself on having 2 of everything.
Fortunately Amazon can have one delivered here tomorrow by 4 pm.
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