Today I have decided to be gruntled.
“What?” you ask, and rightly so.
There is no such word as ‘gruntled.’ There used to be. We English speakers all know the grammar rule:
word + dis- = not the word
So if I can be disgruntled (displeased, upset, unhappy), surely I can be gruntled.
Turns out I used to could. But not longer. Back in the 1400's, I could gruntle (to utter a little or low grunt Entymology, which apparently indicated satisfaction or pleasure). But no more, as the main word from which disgruntle was formed has fallen out of usage. I guess with our many and pervasive civilizing influences, we no longer grunt our pleasure – or we shouldn’t, so best not to speak of such things.
But here’s the thing that captured my attention: googling for synonyms for the word happy, the first response that came up was synonyms for sad – expert info on depression.
Now that’s enough to make one depressed, isn’t it?
Searching for words to express ‘happy’, the google gods decide I’m probably depressed and sad.
Sigh.
It would be funny – if it weren’t.
The good news is I finally found 48 synonyms for happy. Thesarus with ‘only’ 46 for sad. I’m happy, glad (a synonym for happy, so I confess to redundancy) that ‘happy’ edges out ‘sad’ on synonyms.
In fact, I’m gruntled.
No comments:
Post a Comment