Are you feeling reckful?

I'm gruntled, ruthful but not combobulated ✨

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Hi friends,

I’m feeling full of bash today.

Following me so far?

Probably not. Cos you can be bashful, but you can’t be bashless. At least, not in British English.

Bashful (adjective): socially shy or timid: different, self-conscious.
Merriam-Webster dictionary.

Why? “Bashful” is an unpaired word.

You can’t exactly say “I’m bashless” (as in, “I’m confident”). Just like it wouldn’t make sense to say:

• “countful” as the opposite of “countless.”

• “aweless” as the opposite of “awful.”

Fans of Ten Things I Hate About You don’t need to be told that Bianca, a young white woman with blonde hair is saying: “know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?” Bianca, a young Black woman with straight dark hair says: “I think you can in Europe.”

Words with no opposite

An unpaired word looks like it should have a related or opposite word.

Unpaired words normally have

• a prefix (like im, in, an) or

• a suffix (like -ful, -less).

• which imply that you can make an antonym by taking away the prefix or suffix.

But in an unpaired word… you can’t.

Lightning cracks across a dark sky. A wolf howls. You shiver as a cold chill runs through your bones, realising that English grammar is even more fickle than you feared in your word nightmares.

Truly, English grammar is a gothic nightmare.

Here are some of my favourite unpaired words (and their non-existent or uncommon pair words):

• offputting and putting

• impulsive and pulsive

• inert and ert

• ungainly and gainly

• uncouth and couth

• ruthless and ruthful

• reckless and reckful

Please go and lose a few hours reading the Wikipedia page of unpaired words.

And then enjoy the short story How I Met My Wife by Jack Winter. Phenomenal. (Thank you to lovely reader Denise for sharing this with me!)

“In the past, you could be reckful (considerate) as well as reckless. People were also gormful (careful); feckful (responsible), ruthful (compassionate), wieldy (agile), ept (adroit), and definitely gruntled. Bring back the lost positives” - Susie Dent.