words that exist only in the negative

[kivrin]

drood's entry here which deals with "reckless" and its rarely-seen positive form "reck" reminded me of a list E and I made in high school of words which exist only in the negative. From words such as "disheveled," "anemic," and "inertia" we made positive back formations. Thus, we often said things like "You look particularly heveled today," "Jerry is so emic he could probably set off a metal detector if he walked through it naked," and, upon smacking someone for stupidity "Oops! Ertia! The tendency of a body at rest to go in to motion!"

Yes, we were dorks.

Comments

[drood.livejournal.com]

Add me to the dork list.

[glimmergirl.livejournal.com]

Ertia!

Actually, since 'intertia' comes from 'in' + 'ars' it does have a positive form. At least in Latin... with a slightly different meaning from the English. ;)

[Sorry, I had to look it up and then comment. Am a nerd, and not quite as cool as you dorks out there.]

[king-chiron.livejournal.com]

Disgruntled? Although drglam introduced 'gruntled' into my vocabulary, so maybe that doesn't count anymore.

[lysimache.livejournal.com]

Hee. Yay, back formations! Yes, yes, I *am* a dork, thank you. :)

*friends you, hoping you won't mind*