ept

Sun Mar 21 17:49:19 UTC 2010

Isn't there a famous essay containing dozens of
(using only?) such formations, like "ept" and
"couth"?  Didn't I see it here? ... Yes I did
(but it doesn't contain "couth", probably because
it's too couth -- see the OED):

Tue, 29 Jan 2002 12:41:55 +0800, From Laurence Horn.

How I met my wife
by Jack Winter
Published 25 July 1994 in the New Yorker

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 array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing
shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way.

I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I'd
have to make bones about it since I was
travelling cognito. Beknownst to me, the hostess,
whom I could see both hide and hair of, was very
proper, so it would be skin off my nose if
anything bad happened. And even though I had only
swerving loyalty to her, my manners couldn't be
peccable. Only toward and heard-of behavior would do.

Fortunately, the embarrassment that my maculate
appearance might cause was evitable. There were
two ways about it, but the chances that someone
as flappable as I would be ept enough to become
persona grata or a sung hero were slim. I was,
after all, something to sneeze at, someone you
could easily hold a candle to, someone who usually aroused bridled passion.

So I decided not to risk it. But then, all at
once, for some apparent reason, she looked in my
direction and smiled in a way that I could make heads and tails of.

I was plussed. It was concerting to see that she
was communicado, and it nerved me that she was
interested in a pareil like me, sight seen.
Normally, I had a domitable spirit, but, being
corrigible, I felt capacitated---as if this were
something I was great shakes at---and forgot that
I had succeeded in situations like this only a
told number of times. So, after a terminable
delay, I acted with mitigated gall and made my
way through the ruly crowd with strong givings.

Nevertheless, since this was all new hat to me
and I had no time to prepare a promptu speech, I
was petuous. Wanting to make only called-for
remarks, I started talking about the hors
d'oeuvres, trying to abuse her of the notion that
I was sipid, and perhaps even bunk a few myths about myself.

She responded well, and I was mayed that she
considered me a savory character who was up to
some good. She told me who she was. "What a
perfect nomer," I said, advertently. The
conversation became more and more choate, and we
spoke at length to much avail. But I was
defatigable, so I had to leave at a godly hour. I
asked if she wanted to come with me. To my
delight, she was committal. We left the party
together and have been together ever since. I
have given her my love, and she has requited it.

At 3/21/2010 01:10 PM, ronbutters at AOL.COM wrote:
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>
>This usage shows a lot of couth in my opinion.
>Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Paul Frank <paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU>
>Date:         Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:57:49
>To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: [ADS-L] ept
>
>Not that I'd ever heard this before, but "socially ept" gets 21 Google
>Books hits:
>
><http://books.google.com/books?q=%2B%22socially+ept%22&btnG=Search+Books>
>
>And 3,730 Google hits:
>
><http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&source=hp&q=%22socially+ept%22&meta=&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=632e1c8883aa332a>
>
>"Socially apt" gets a lot more Google Books and plain vanilla Google hits.
>
>Paul
>
>Paul Frank
>Translator
>German, French, Italian, Chinese => English
>Huémoz - Aigle - Neuchâtel, Switzerland
>paulfrank at post.harvard.edu
>paul.frank at bfs.admin.ch
>
>
>
>
>On 21 March 2010 13:06, Damien Hall <djh514 at york.ac.uk> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the
> mail header -----------------------
> > Sender:    American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:    Damien Hall <djh514 at YORK.AC.UK>
> > Subject:   ept
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Just heard the author Val McDermid, on the BBC ethical-debate show 'The Big
> > Questions' (21 March 2010), say something like the following:
> >
> > '[my children are] well-adjusted and socially ept'
> >
> > OED only lists_ept_ as 'a deliberate antonym of "inept": adroit,
> > appropriate, effective; hence_eptitude_,_eptly_ adv.', and the quotations
> > back that up, all seeming to use it ironically. The word isn't in the
> > online version of MW. From her tone, McDermid wasn't being ironic - there
> > was no change of pitch or pause to call attention to the word - and no-one
> > picked it up, though, granted, on that show you wouldn't expect them to
> > (they were debating IVF at the time).
> >
> > MDermid was brought up in the late '50s and early '60s in Kirkcaldy, Fife,
> > Scotland; I don't know whether that's relevant to the use of the form, but
> > others here might. Has anyone else heard it non-ironically?
> >
> > Damien
> >
> > --
> > Damien Hall
> >
> > University of York
> > Department of Language and Linguistic Science
> > Heslington
> > YORK
> > YO10 5DD
> > UK
> >
> > Tel. (office) +44 (0)1904 432665
> >   (mobile) +44 (0)771 853 5634
> > Fax +44 (0)1904 432673
> >
> > http://www.york.ac.uk/res/aiseb
> >
> > http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/lang/people/pages/hall.htm
> >
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