41–48 of 48 posts
Dan Dennett once quipped the he would like to see "evitable" as a word, with a similar meaning to "avoidable", but without the connotation that it is a future that we wish to avoid.
"Evitable" is a word, in Spanish. https://www.spanishdict.com/translate/evitable
Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Tractable” is quite common in computer science, often to refer to problems which can be solved in polynomial time, as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobham%27s_thesis
Thunk is quite common in some parts, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunk
Some of them -- like peccable - are probably truly dead. But others, at least to me, seem obvious when pointed out. If I ran into "scrutable" or "wieldly" in a sensible context, I'm not sure I would realize they were archaic. A personal favourite "tractable" is still current but already seems to be fading away. Far more things remain intractable. I have sometimes written a word, and then stared at it, and been unable…
> Drag, drug, druggen/drawn. Some of these may not be current in your dialect anymore. I say dragged. "Drawn" also only really feels right for the passive voice. For using "drawn" actively, the only thing that sounds remotely right is "I drew", but that sounds super strange compared to "I dragged", I'm not even sure I would have recognized the former as a usage of the verb "drag" before thinking about all this.
Old English has: dragan -- ic drage, he drægþ (dragth), ic drog/droh, he drog/droh. Dragende, gedragen.
Standard Modern English has: to drag -- I drag, he drags, I dragged, you dragged. Dragging, dragged.
Variant there's also: to drag -- I drag, he drags, I drug, he drugs. Dragging, drug/drawn/druggen.
gedragen -> draggen -> draghn -> drawn
gedragen -> draggen -> dragged
gedragen -> draggen
gedragen -> draggen -> draghen -> draghéd -> draught -> draft
All the same root, branching in different directions.
Some of them -- like peccable - are probably truly dead. But others, at least to me, seem obvious when pointed out. If I ran into "scrutable" or "wieldly" in a sensible context, I'm not sure I would realize they were archaic. A personal favourite "tractable" is still current but already seems to be fading away. Far more things remain intractable. I have sometimes written a word, and then stared at it, and been unable…
Kempt is also still used fairly regularly (even though my iPad seems to think it is not a real word)… usually used as ‘well kempt’, like a “well kempt yard”
Here's a fun New Yorker article that takes this to an extreme: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1994/07/25/how-i-met-my-w... A sample: "It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate. I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total ar…
"furling" is clearly meant to a part of the joke, but I've spent enough time around sailors that it sounds perfectly natural to me.
Some of them -- like peccable - are probably truly dead. But others, at least to me, seem obvious when pointed out. If I ran into "scrutable" or "wieldly" in a sensible context, I'm not sure I would realize they were archaic. A personal favourite "tractable" is still current but already seems to be fading away. Far more things remain intractable. I have sometimes written a word, and then stared at it, and been unable…
Archaic or not, I think most of us would find it "out of place" or awkward. When's the last time you used scrutable or wieldy in conversation? We probably could figure out the meaning but I bet most of us would find it odd. Though if more people started using it, we'd quickly get used to it.