Some thirty years ago, I came across the word uncouth for maybe the hundredth time in my life. But that time it jumped out at me – if the word uncouth exists, so should couth. Or couthful. Logic dictates that negative words must have a corresponding positive, but that seems not to be so with uncouth. How strange.

 

It wasn’t a day later, still musing on the concept, that I encountered the word inert, and I was off and running.

 

I’m an inveterate list maker, and in my mind any two similar things do a list make. I grabbed a grocery receipt, wrote uncouth and inert on the back of it, and pinned it to the kitchen bulletin board, inviting my kids to add to it as they ran across more examples. The little list stayed pinned to that board for the next ten years, finally incorporating more pieces of paper and several dozen words. It was a source of learning, laughter, and discussions about the vagaries of this magnificent language we speak.

 

With that in mind, let me tell you a story:

 

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Ina whose doting and supportive parents, Una and Ian, were determined that her childhood would be filled with positive experiences. The three of them lived in a kempt little house, where the tidy little girl always delighted in looking sheveled, and never let her room become macculate.

 

As she grew older and became more socially aware, Ina sometimes she worried that her manners were peccable, but her dignant and supportive mother Una assured her that she offended no one.

 

Feckful and ept, Ina’s father Ian worked hard to support his little family, but he never let the worries of his job interfere with his home life. He came home gruntled and traught every evening, and always treated his wife and child with dain.

 

All Ina’s schoolwork was good, but she excelled at writing poetry. Her work was consistently ane and sipid, and she won many awards because of the effability of her writings.

 

In Ina’s junior year at college she met Ivan. Ina had dated a number of other men, but she found many of them to be uninterested in their studies, prone to partying a little too much, and not always trustworthy. Unlike many of them, Ivan was always ebriated, ruthful, and ert. Ina was especially taken with Ivan’s shiftfulness, and they fell in love.

 

Ina and Ivan were married soon after they graduated and, evitably, had two great little kids. Una and Ian, of course, were delighted with their ruly and couthful grandchildren.

 

And they all lived positively ever after.

TK Magazine, May 2008

 

 

 

 

Posted by Sharon under Reprints from TK Magazine | 2 Comments »