Does "fraught" have a present tense?
anal...@hotmail.com
verb "gruntle" either).
Are there other verbs that are hardly ever used in the present tense?
Also, I found a strange use of "fraught":
start quote:
The events in Budapest are fraught with cultural activities
end quote.
James Hogg
>same with "disgruntled" (which probbaly doesn't have a non-negative
>verb "gruntle" either).
The present tense was "fraught", centuries ago when it was
actually used. An example of the infinitive from Holinshed,
1577-87:
"Cesar was constreined to fraught those [ships] that he could get
with a greater burden."
>Are there other verbs that are hardly ever used in the present tense?
Well, we still use the past participle "numb" but no one around
these parts uses the present tense of "nim" any more.
>Also, I found a strange use of "fraught":
>
>start quote:
>
>The events in Budapest are fraught with cultural activities
>
>end quote.
Someone has been using a dictionary carelessly. Hungarian phrase
books are even more dangerous, I'm told.
--
James
Nick Spalding
<8ed88cfe-2dc0-4b1d...@d32g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>
on Fri, 3 Jul 2009 06:08:59 -0700 (PDT):
> same with "disgruntled" (which probbaly doesn't have a non-negative
> verb "gruntle" either).
Tell that to P.G. Wodehouse.
> Are there other verbs that are hardly ever used in the present tense?
>
> Also, I found a strange use of "fraught":
>
> start quote:
>
> The events in Budapest are fraught with cultural activities
>
> end quote.
--
Nick Spalding
BrE/IrE
Nick Spalding
on Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:23:21 +0200:
That depends on the cultural activities.
--
Nick Spalding
BrE/IrE
Cheryl
Isn't 'fraught' an adjective these days? Therefore, it no longer has a
present tense.
There must be some very peculiar cultural activities in Budapest!
Cheryl
Evan Kirshenbaum
> same with "disgruntled" (which probbaly doesn't have a non-negative
> verb "gruntle" either).
According to the OED, "disgruntled" isn't a negative. The sense of
"dis-" they point (sense 5) to isn't a negative, but rather an
intensifier. "Gruntle" isn't marked as being obsolete. The first
sense is "to utter a little or low grunt" and the second is "to
grumble, murmur, complain".
The active verb "disgruntle" is defined as
To put into sulky dissatisfaction or ill-humour; to chagrin,
disgust.
As for the word in the subject ("fraught"), the OED says that it's
obsolete except in the past participle. The original sense was to
load a ship with cargo.
> Are there other verbs that are hardly ever used in the present tense?
>
> Also, I found a strange use of "fraught":
>
> start quote:
>
> The events in Budapest are fraught with cultural activities
>
> end quote.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |There are two types of people -
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| Leigh Blue Caldwell
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(650)857-7572
Wood Avens
<kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>
>As for the word in the subject ("fraught"), the OED says that it's
>obsolete except in the past participle. The original sense was to
>load a ship with cargo.
>
I had always unthinkingly supposed that it was connected with
"freight", and I'm pleased to see that the OED appears to support
this. Fraught, freighted, weighed down (metaphorically): that's how I
tend to use it.
--
Katy Jennison
spamtrap: remove the first two letters after the @
Evan Kirshenbaum
> On Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:00:59 -0700, Evan Kirshenbaum
> <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>
>
>>
>>As for the word in the subject ("fraught"), the OED says that it's
>>obsolete except in the past participle. The original sense was to
>>load a ship with cargo.
>
> I had always unthinkingly supposed that it was connected with
> "freight", and I'm pleased to see that the OED appears to support
> this. Fraught, freighted, weighed down (metaphorically): that's how I
> tend to use it.
It's the same idea, but it appears to have a different etymology.
According to them, "fraught" probably comes from Middle Dutch or
Middle Low German "vracht", while "freight" probably comes from
"vrecht", which they call a variant of "vracht". The noun came first,
and the verb was "to fraught":
c1400 MANDEVILLE (Roxb.) v. 15 �ai wende gladly to Cipre to fraght
�er schippes with salt.
Shakespeare used it in _Cymbeline_:
1611 SHAKES. _Cymb_. I. i. 126 If after this command thou fraught
the Court With thy vnworthinesse, thou dyest.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |The reason that we don't have
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |"bear-proof" garbage cans in the
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|overlap in intelligence between the
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |smartest bears and the dumbest
(650)857-7572 |humans.
| Yosemite Park Ranger
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/
John Kane
> James Hogg wrote, in <jt0s45d3kdboejgufpfpmu9899rtb0a...@4ax.com>
> on Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:23:21 +0200:
>
>
>
>
> > >same with "disgruntled" (which probbaly doesn't have a non-negative
> > >verb "gruntle" either).
>
> > The present tense was "fraught", centuries ago when it was
> > actually used. An example of the infinitive from Holinshed,
> > 1577-87:
>
> > "Cesar was constreined to fraught those [ships] that he could get
> > with a greater burden."
>
> > >Are there other verbs that are hardly ever used in the present tense?
>
> > Well, we still use the past participle "numb" but no one around
> > these parts uses the present tense of "nim" any more.
>
> > >Also, I found a strange use of "fraught":
>
> > >start quote:
>
> > >The events in Budapest are fraught with cultural activities
>
> > >end quote.
>
> > Someone has been using a dictionary carelessly. Hungarian phrase
> > books are even more dangerous, I'm told.
>
> That depends on the cultural activities.
Yes indeed. I've seen some that needed a HASMAT warning. Fraught
didn't even enter into it.
John Kane, Kingston ON Canada
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
wrote:
>anal...@hotmail.com wrote, in
><8ed88cfe-2dc0-4b1d...@d32g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>
> on Fri, 3 Jul 2009 06:08:59 -0700 (PDT):
>
>> same with "disgruntled" (which probbaly doesn't have a non-negative
>> verb "gruntle" either).
>
>Tell that to P.G. Wodehouse.
>
Exactly.
"gruntled" is described by the OED as a back formation from
"disgruntled" meaning Pleased, satisfied, contented.
It is still in use.
In my experience it is often used jocularly with the user apparently
imagining that he or she has just invented it.
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
HVS
Some of these seem to have almost lost their jocularity over the past
30 or 40 years. I've certainly heard "couth" used without any
apparent expectation of hilarity, and I think I may have encountered
"kempt" used in a similar way.
--
Cheers, Harvey
CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed
Ildhund
> Peter Duncanson (BrE) wrote
>>Nick Spalding wrote:
>>> anal...@hotmail.com wrote:
>>>
>>>> same with "disgruntled" (which probbaly doesn't have a
>>>> non-negative verb "gruntle" either).
>>>
>>> Tell that to P.G. Wodehouse.
>>>
>> Exactly.
>> "gruntled" is described by the OED as a back formation from
>> "disgruntled" meaning Pleased, satisfied, contented.
>>
>> It is still in use.
>>
>> In my experience it is often used jocularly with the user
>> apparently imagining that he or she has just invented it.
>
> Some of these seem to have almost lost their jocularity over the
> past 30 or 40 years. I've certainly heard "couth" used without
> any
> apparent expectation of hilarity, and I think I may have
> encountered "kempt" used in a similar way.
I don't think "kempt" is a back-formation. Isn't it an old form of
"combed" (ON /kemba/, to comb)? I can't get through to OED to
check...
--
Noel
HVS
I'm sure you're right that it wasn't a back-formation in times
past; I thought, though, it that it fell so thoroughly out of
language that its modern use started as a conscious and humorous
back formation (rather than as the reintroduction of an archaic
word).
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
wrote:
>On 04 Jul 2009, Peter Duncanson (BrE) wrote
>
>> On Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:23:47 +0100, Nick Spalding
>> <spal...@iol.ie> wrote:
>>
>>> anal...@hotmail.com wrote, in
>>> <8ed88cfe-2dc0-4b1d...@d32g2000yqh.googlegroups.c
>>> om> on Fri, 3 Jul 2009 06:08:59 -0700 (PDT):
>>>
>>>> same with "disgruntled" (which probbaly doesn't have a
>>>> non-negative verb "gruntle" either).
>>>
>>> Tell that to P.G. Wodehouse.
>>>
>> Exactly.
>> "gruntled" is described by the OED as a back formation from
>> "disgruntled" meaning Pleased, satisfied, contented.
>>
>> It is still in use.
>>
>> In my experience it is often used jocularly with the user
>> apparently imagining that he or she has just invented it.
>
>Some of these seem to have almost lost their jocularity over the past
>30 or 40 years. I've certainly heard "couth" used without any
>apparent expectation of hilarity,
That is my experience too.
OED of "couth":
Obs. or only Sc. exc. in sense 6b.
b. [Back-formation f. UNCOUTH a.] Used as a deliberate antonym of
UNCOUTH a. 6: cultured, well-mannered, etc. Also absol.
1896 BEERBOHM in Pageant 230 The couth solemnity of his [Pater's]
mind.
....
1968 Queens's Coll. (Oxf.) Rec. 12 The Waynflete building..is a
scaleless slab of uncouth outline which academically couth details
(inscription in Roman letters on the cornice, etc.) do not redeem.
> and I think I may have encountered
>"kempt" used in a similar way.
--
James Hogg
The OED has examples of "kempt" from the following years:
c1050, c1380, 1513, 1601, 1863 (Carefully kempt tresses), 1867
1905 (their hair is neatly kempt), 1929 (The street paving ...
looked marvellously smooth and kempt), 1946 (Gardens as well
kempt as a short hair-cut), 1951, a1954, 1975 (Artificially
beautified people looking kempt".
It doesn't seem to have fallen out of the language at all.
--
James
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
wrote:
OED:
kempt, ppl. a.
[f. KEMB v.]
Of hair or wool: Combed. Also with advs., as well-kempt, etc. Cf.
UNKEMPT. Also transf.
kemb, v.
Obs. exc. dial.
[Com. Teut.: OE. c{ehook}mban = OS. kembian, kemmian (MDu. kemmen),
OHG. chempan (MHG. kemben, kemmen, G. k�mmen), ON. kemba (Da.
k�mme):{em}O.Teut. *kambjan, f. kamb- COMB n.1 Now displaced by COMB
v.1 (f. the n.; cf. Du. kammen, Sw. kamma), but partly surviving in
the pa. pple. kempt, and the commoner unkempt.
In ME. the vowel usually remained short, and the commonest
spelling is kemb or kemm: forms indicating a long vowel are much
less frequent. In later Sc. it is difficult to separate kemb or keme
from kame = comb.]
1. trans. To disentangle and smooth (hair) by drawing a comb through
it; to dress or trim (the hair, head, a person, etc.) with a comb;
to curry (a horse): = COMB v.1 1. Now dial.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> On Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:23:47 +0100, Nick Spalding <spal...@iol.ie>
> wrote:
>
>>anal...@hotmail.com wrote, in
>><8ed88cfe-2dc0-4b1d...@d32g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>
>> on Fri, 3 Jul 2009 06:08:59 -0700 (PDT):
>>
>>> same with "disgruntled" (which probbaly doesn't have a
>>> non-negative verb "gruntle" either).
>>
>>Tell that to P.G. Wodehouse.
>>
> Exactly.
> "gruntled" is described by the OED as a back formation from
> "disgruntled" meaning Pleased, satisfied, contented.
The OED list the following interesting sequence of words
gruntle -> disgruntle -> disgruntled -> gruntled
The first and last derivations treat the prefix "dis-" differently,
the first as an intensifier[1], the last as a negation. So "to
gruntle" is to complain, but "to be gruntled" is to be satisfied.
[1] I would have called it a causative.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |All tax revenue is the result of
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |holding a gun to somebody's head.
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|If you don't pay your taxes, you'll
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(650)857-7572 |you'll be jailed. If you try to
|escape from jail, you'll be shot.
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ | P.J. O'Rourke
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Some of these seem to have almost lost their jocularity over the
> past 30 or 40 years. I've certainly heard "couth" used without any
> apparent expectation of hilarity,
The OED lists "couth" both as a back-formation from "uncouth" and also
as the adjective that led to "uncouth", in two of the latter sense not
marked as obsolete:
6. a. Kind, affable, agreeable, pleasant: said of persons and
their actions; = COUTHIE 1. _Sc_.
7. Comfortable, snug, cosy; = COUTHIE 2. _Sc_.
In neither sense, however, do they have citations past the eighteenth
century, but it's possibly that it was preserved and either reinforced
by (or rederived from) Scottish "couthie".
> and I think I may have encountered "kempt" used in a similar way.
They don't even treat "kempt" as a back-formation, and have citations
flowing from 1050 to 1975. "Unkempt" is cited to 1742, with
"unkembed" (marked "now rare") cited to 1390.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |The whole idea of our government is
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|something and not pay for it.
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | P.J. O'Rourke
(650)857-7572
Evan Kirshenbaum
> OED of "couth":
>
> Obs. or only Sc. exc. in sense 6b.
I read that differently. I thought they were saying that it was
equivalent to one or the other sense of "couthie", which was Scottish,
not that the sense of "couth" was Scottish.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Code should be designed to make it
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Palo Alto, CA 94304 |if you get it right.
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
tsuidf
> Someone has been using a dictionary carelessly. Hungarian phrase
> books are even more dangerous, I'm told.
Hovercrafts and eels, say no more.
Joe Fineman
to load, but it is obsolete except for its past participle, which is
also "fraught".
My impression is that this word has become much more common in recent
years. When I was a boy, a thing had to be fraught *with* something,
but these days I am usually merely told that it is fraught, and it is
up to me to imagine what with.
--
--- Joe Fineman jo...@verizon.net
||: To understand something means to have derived it from :||
||: quantum mechanics, which nobody understands. :||
J. J. Lodder
> Not any more. According to the OED, the verb is "to fraught", meaning
> to load, but it is obsolete except for its past participle, which is
> also "fraught".
>
> My impression is that this word has become much more common in recent
> years. When I was a boy, a thing had to be fraught *with* something,
> but these days I am usually merely told that it is fraught, and it is
> up to me to imagine what with.
Dutch still has the (dutch!) a sound, in 'vracht',
which has become freight in English.
Jan