Watching Wimbledon brings back painful memories. My only attempt to play tennis competitively was in my primary school sports of 1974.
I was beaten 6-1 (matches were only one set) by a large, sporty girl called Moira from the year below. I think I only got the 1 as an act of pity.
Moira made up for it many years later at The Coconut Grove nightclub in Dundee by planting what I can only describe as a “ferocious” kiss upon me. She was, probably still is, a very robust person!
Anyway, in this year’s SW19 tournament, reminding me of the redoubtable Moira, I’ve been impressed by the ferocity of serves. One strong-of-arm chap, a Polish giant named Hubert Hurkacz who played Djokovich, had his service described as “almost indomitable” by the commentators.
That word “indomitable” got me thinking. If there is an indomitable (impossible to defeat or subdue) there must surely be a domitable? It turns out there is, but it is a very rarely-used word.
And redoubtable (formidable, fearsome) doesn’t truly have a partner word because doubtable “able to be doubted” isn’t its opposite.
These words depend, of course, upon us accepting that the application of re, in, non, dis, or several other prefixes or suffixes, denotes an opposite: as in inactivity (opposite of activity), disappear, or nonsense.
There is a name for this. Words that sound like the opposite of something, but aren’t, are termed “unpaired words”. They aren’t too common in English, but not vanishingly rare either.
Inert, discomfit, improvisation, rebuttal, nonchalant, and many more, are unpaired words.
A few unpaired words are given pairs as jokes, such as gruntled (from disgruntled), gusted (disgusted), plussed (nonplussed). These are back-formations, though, invented for wordplay.
And many more which look like unpaired words actually do have pairs, but they have fallen out of fashion. Ruthless, for instance, is commonly used but few people are today described as ruth. It is an old word, meaning compassionate or feeling pity.
Kempt (paired to unkempt) was replaced years ago by “combed”. Scathed (unscathed) is a word, as is nocuous (innocuous), and pulsive (impulsive).
There is a Scots-only paired word for “feckless”. It seems we have the only branch of the English language to retain “feckful” as a word. I like this, although it does make me wonder why feck isn’t the pair of feckless. Perhaps there is a good reason.
My favourite unpaired word is gormless. Though anyone watching the most consummate act of tennis domination of 1974 could have described Moira as having more gorm than me.
Word of the week
Atavistic (adjective)
Relating to or characterised by reversion to something ancient or ancestral. EG: “I have an atavistic fear of rats . . . and tennis-playing Amazons who humiliate me”.
Read the latest Oh my word! every Saturday in The Courier. Contact me at sfinan@dctmedia.co.uk
