The place ‘discombobulation’ got here from, and why it caught : NPR

The probably discombobulating swirl of New York City’s Times Square

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Feeling somewhat confused, involved, off-kilter, out of kinds? Sounds such as you’re discombobulated.

It’s a becoming phrase for an unsettling feeling. It sounds formal, possibly even fancy. But it is really the creation of some good old school American jokesters.

“The word is very much an American invention,” says Joshua Blackburn, the U.Okay.-based creator of The Language-Lover’s Lexipedia. “And it seems to have been part of a fad in the 19th century for inventing rather fancy, grand and rather humorous-sounding words.”

He says the primary a part of the phrase, “discom,” was probably impressed by actual phrases like discompose and discomfort. The closing half, “ulate,” additionally reads like many different Latin-derived verbs (suppose tabulate, regulate, populate). The wild card is the center half, that funny-sounding “bob.”

Blackburn, citing linguist Ben Zimmer’s work, thinks “bob” comes from “bobbery,” an Anglo-Indian phrase for commotion or noise. Taken all collectively, Blackburn says, it really works.

“The sound of the word seems to suggest the meaning of the word,” he says. “The sound of the word is discombobulating.”

Oxford English Dictionary traces the verb’s first known use to a newspaper in Hagerstown, Md., within the 1820s. Blackburn says it advanced through the years, from “discombobborate” in 1825 to “discombobrocate” in 1834 and, lastly, “discombobulation” in 1839.

This was throughout an period during which Americans apparently acquired a kick out of concocting elaborate pseudo-Latin phrases — what’s generally known as “Dog Latin” — as a method of mocking politicians and elites.

Writers and different artistic varieties would take components of Latin-sounding phrases and “form them into silly-sounding combinations,” in line with linguist Jess Zafarris, aka @uselessetymology on social media. She mentioned in a recent video that some such phrases first appeared in British or American stage performs, “often delivered in humorous dialogue by bombastic, gregarious or even overconfident American characters.”

It blossomed into sufficient of a craze to benefit point out, and criticism, in John Camden Hotten’s 1859 Dictionary of Modern Slang. 

“Nothing pleases an ignorant person more than a high-sounding term ‘full of fury,'” he wrote. “How melodious and drum-like are those vulgar coruscations.”

Other such improvements embrace: absquatulate (to go away all of a sudden), explaterate (to speak nonstop), spiflicate (to destroy), flusticated (scorching and bothered).

But none have fairly the endurance of discombobulate.

It’s appeared in movies, sports commentary and political contexts. (Earlier this 12 months, President Trump mentioned the U.S. used a secret “discombobulator” throughout its Venezuela raid.) And Merriam-Webster has even anointed it one in every of peoples’ “top 10 favorite words.”

Blackburn’s concept? It’s enjoyable to say, expressive and as related as ever in at the moment’s topsy-turvy world.

“We don’t live in absquatulating times, we live in discombobulating times,” Blackburn says. “So I think that the reason why people love to use this word, and it is not going anywhere, is because discombobulation does actually express something about the human condition right now.”

The reverse(s) of discombobulation

What can we do to shake our discombobulation?

A cheekily named signal at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport in Wisconsin gives one suggestion.

After passing via the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) safety checkpoint, vacationers discover themselves in a “Recombobulation Area.” That’s the zone during which to place your sneakers and belt again on, return your laptop computer to its sleeve and zip up your luggage earlier than venturing towards your gate.

Barry Bateman, who served as airport government director from 1982 to 2014, says he had the thought to place the join throughout renovations round 2008.

“We always had that space beyond the security where people would put themselves back together after being discombobulated by TSA and the screening process,” he tells NPR. “And so I thought, well, okay, let’s mark this area with something.”

The signal acquired lots of consideration — from passengers, on social media and in Garrison Keillor’s nationally syndicated column in 2010.

“It was such a unique word, and people enjoyed it so much, that it’s become a permanent fixture there,” says Bateman.

The Milwaukee airport sells recombobulation t-shirts in its memento retailers, and an area brewery makes beer with that moniker. The signal was additionally a Jeopardy! clue in 2020.

How does Bateman really feel about coining the time period?

“I should have copyrighted it, that’s how I feel,” he mentioned. “But, no, that’s fine. I think it’s a fun word for people to use. Apparently it’s still not recognized as a true English word. But maybe someday it will be.”

Indeed, you will not discover “recombobulate” and even “combobulate” in an actual dictionary. There’s solely “discombobulate.” And whereas nobody needs to really feel that manner, at the least there’s an important phrase to explain it.

Blackburn finds that it conveys a humorousness and empathy, not like phrases reminiscent of “anxious” or “scared.”

“To say that we live in discombobulating times, or that it’s all a little bit discombobulating, has a bit more playfulness, it’s less fearful,” he says. “So maybe we need to embrace discombobulation as yes, part of our reality, but not necessarily something to fear.”