Chrysti The Wordsmith: Lost Positives

Greetings and welcome to Christie the wordsmith from Bozeman Montana a fam. If we can be reckless ruthless and feckless. Why is it generally not linguistically possible to have rec be full of Ruth or to be feck full. Were there ever any antonyms of reckless ruthless and feckless. And if so where do they go. For reasons unknown English speakers abandon centuries ago the verb req are U.S. K which means to care. But we didn't relinquish its antonym and so reckless meaning careless is a lively member of our modern English discourse. The word Ruth is also all but orphaned by English speakers. It being a last positive of the common term Ruth Les. Though many dictionaries contain the word Ruth a noun meaning compassion or pity. It's certainly unusual for any English speaker to employ it. Feckless is a word of a different stripe this term originated in Scotland where in the 15th century fack FEC K was simply a clipped form of the word effect

from FAC was formed feck less literally meaning having no effect. And what about the shovelled in disheveled the EPT inept The camped in unkempt the Gruntal in disgruntle your dictionary contains the pedigrees of all these terms and I invite you to look them up. And if you need some reading suggestions take a look at the bibliography page of my website where if you're of bibliophile you'll find dozens of titles of delicious dictionaries at wordsmith radio dot org. CHRISTIE The wordsmith is sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry. Zoot web dot com.