A man can unkempt or innocent, but can he be “kempt” or “nocent”? This week we’ll eyeball words of that ilk. We’ll “accentuate the positive”.

corrigible — capable of being corrected, reformed, or improved
[Middle Latin corrigere, to correct]

The source of everything respectable in man either as an intellectual or as a moral being [is] that his errors are corrigible. He is capable of correcting his mistakes, by discussion and experience. Not by experience alone. There must be discussion, to show how experience is to be interpreted.
— John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

I’m going to make a private list of the words I think you will include. I’ll tell you at the end of the week if I got it right.

Logic tells me you should have started with incunabula, etymologically speaking.

Thanks for starting this thread!

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:
I’m going to make a private list of the words I think you will include.

LOL, Bob. Have at it. I have every confidence that you can find enough further examples for us to repeat this theme.

Samual Johnson used one that we noted here a few years ago, I believe.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: wordcrafter, April 24, 2023 09:46

Actually working on a poem...

vincible — capable of being overcome or subdued

People often represent the weakest link in the [computer] security chain and are chronically responsible for the failure of security systems. … I tell prospective clients that the mathematics are impeccable, the computers are vincible, the networks are lousy, and the people are abysmal.
—Bruce Schneider, Secrets and Lies

Sent a poem to your pm

Thanks, Bob. I admice your talent as a poet, and I’m grateful to you for sharing it with us.

ruthful — 1. full of compassion or pity.
. 2. inducing compassion or pity; lamentable, piteous
ruth — the quality of being compassionate; the feeling of sorrow for another

And when we have our armours buckled on,
The venom'd vengeance ride upon our swords,
Spur them to ruthful work, rein them from ruth.
— Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida

[translation:
When we are armed,
We carry vengeance in our swords,
And use them for sad work without feelisg sadness (compassion).]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: wordcrafter, April 25, 2023 20:51

But if you hadn’t started this topic I probably wouldn’t have thought to write the poem.

I though "vincible" described a kind of half-spoon/half fork (see " spork ") used to take small portions of wine.

P.S. After you've googled "spork" see here, too. Even if you think you know the word already.

scrutable - that can be understood by scrutiny. Chiefly opposed to inscrutable

Thurber shows an ordinary man with extraordinary dreams who remains, ironically, all too scrutable,
-Walter Mitty’s Reimagination, in The New Yorker, June 21, 2012

Inscrutable is common, but I've never seen scrutable used.

trammel — verb: to hinder the activity or free movement of; noun: a restraint; something that restricts activity, expression, or progress
Compare untrammeled, which is used only as an adjective, meaning “not limited or restricted; unrestrained”.

[T]hs plan does not unnecessarily trammel the interests of white employees, neither requiring the discharge of white workers and their replacement with new black hirees, nor creating an absolute bar to the advancement of white employees …
— U.S. Supreme Court, in Steelworkers v. Weber (1979)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: wordcrafter, April 27, 2023 20:27

Trammel is also the name of a marking tool: https://www.mscdirect.com/brow...7Cdc&cid=ppc-google-