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So you have scabs, you are scabrous. And if you have leprosy, you are leprous.
How about if you have scurvy? Are you scurvous?
No.
Scurvy is a medical condition, not a symptom of a medical condition.
While leprosy is also a medical condition, it also has symptoms that are particularly associated with leprosy - in this case, the hallmark scales.
Scabs by themselves are not medical condition, and are almost exclusively a symptom of something else.
The latter two lend themselves well to the use of an adjective since they are both visible symptoms. While there are hallmark symptoms of scurvy, there is not one symptom that readily avails itself to the naked eye.
Besides, the word scurvous doesn't exist. And you call yourself a grammar nazi. I'm sending you a dictionary.
Scurvy is a medical condition, not a symptom of a medical condition.
While leprosy is also a medical condition, it also has symptoms that are particularly associated with leprosy - in this case, the hallmark scales.
Scabs by themselves are not medical condition, and are almost exclusively a symptom of something else.
The latter two lend themselves well to the use of an adjective since they are both visible symptoms. While there are hallmark symptoms of scurvy, there is not one symptom that readily avails itself to the naked eye.
Besides, the word scurvous doesn't exist. And you call yourself a grammar nazi. I'm sending you a dictionary.
<poke> I know it doesn't exist; that's why I was talking about it not-being-there for use.
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Kind of like my old list of words that do not exist on their own, only in their negation. Most of them are traits that you want your employees to have/be:
kempt
gruntled
ept
(unfortunately, "washed" actually is a word)
(so is "literate")
I could have sworn I had more, but those are the main three. :)
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Kind of like my old list of words that do not exist on their own, only in their negation. Most of them are traits that you want your employees to have/be:
kempt
gruntled
ept
(unfortunately, "washed" actually is a word)
(so is "literate")
I could have sworn I had more, but those are the main three. :)
>I do believe "kempt" exists on its own. I actually use "kempt" more than its negative form. - Sherlise
It does... And it doesn't. Kempt actually pre-dates unkempt in the surviving record of the language, but it more or less vanished from English usage some five hundred years ago. It was only revived relatively recently in some contexts as a back-formation neologism from unkempt, which oddly first appeared in the language almost a century after kempt fell out of use.
Both words descend from a Germanic and ultimately Proto Indo-European root that means something to do with teeth, and are distantly related to comb, as in combing your hair. I believe kempt was a past-participle of an Old English verb "to comb", meaning a kempt person is someone "having-been-combed".
Dave, Brandain's Wordsmith, who realizes on some level that you probably didn't actually want to know all that
It does... And it doesn't. Kempt actually pre-dates unkempt in the surviving record of the language, but it more or less vanished from English usage some five hundred years ago. It was only revived relatively recently in some contexts as a back-formation neologism from unkempt, which oddly first appeared in the language almost a century after kempt fell out of use.
Both words descend from a Germanic and ultimately Proto Indo-European root that means something to do with teeth, and are distantly related to comb, as in combing your hair. I believe kempt was a past-participle of an Old English verb "to comb", meaning a kempt person is someone "having-been-combed".
Dave, Brandain's Wordsmith, who realizes on some level that you probably didn't actually want to know all that
