Make Your Point > Archived Issues > DISCOMFIT

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connect today's word to others: Inside our word discomfit, the fit part comes from the Latin facere, meaning "to make or to do." Facere shows up in tons of other English words, including facile, edifice, officious, affectation, maleficent, and aficionado. For each of those, could you explain how, at the core, they involve making or doing something? When you're discomfited, you're feeling uncomfortable. Even though discomfit looks like it should be related to comfort and discomfort, it's not. Comfort, discomfort, and other words like fort, forte and fort___ ("to make strong") aren't based on facere but rather on fortis, meaning "strong." However, over the past few centuries, discomfit's resemblance to discomfort is probably why we now use it to mean "to make uncomfortable" instead of its older, unrelated meaning. That kind of change in usage makes a lot of language purists pretty discomfited. :) (To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.) make your point with... "DISCOMFIT" The Latin roots inside "discomfit" mean to "un-prepare" (more literally, to "not make with"), because originally, to discomfit people meant to undo them in battle: to beat them, to defeat them, to overthrow them. Then the meaning changed. To discomfit plans or hopes meant to thwart them, to foil them, to ruin them. Then the meaning got even weaker. Now, and for the past few hundred years, to discomfit people means to make them confused, nervous, embarrassed, and/or uncomfortable. Pronunciation: diss KUM fit Part of speech: Verb, the transitive kind: "that discomfited him," "it discomfits her," "this keeps discomfiting us." Other forms: discomfited, discomfiting, discomfiture How to use it: Generally we talk about facts, questions, comments, responses, behaviors, manners, problems, losses, events, and circumstances that discomfit people. "That inconvenient fact discomfits her." "The difficult question discomfited him." "Their response was angry, discomfiting us profoundly." It's common to use the passive voice so you can focus on the person being discomfited: "he was discomfited by the article," "she was discomfited by his pushy manner," "the company was discomfited by its competitor's instant success." And we can talk about discomfiting things, like discomfiting questions and truths, discomfiting signs and indications, discomfiting experiences and realizations, and discomfiting surprises and jolts. Finally, to use the noun, talk about someone's discomfiture (or the discomfiture of someone), often about or over some issue. examples: I steered my daughter away from the stranger, discomfited by his leering compliments. "Among Dr. Hansen’s colleagues, some of the discomfiture about the new paper stems from his dual roles as both a publishing climate scientist and, in recent years, a political activist."    —Justin Gillis, The New York Times, 22 March 2016 study it now: Look away from the screen to define "discomfit" without saying "unsettle" or "flummox." try it out: Fill in the blanks: "It was discomfiting to (watch, observe, or witness) _____." Example: "Immediately after my classmate's presentation of the study, it was discomfiting to witness our professor reveal how the entire study had been plagiarized--from his own work." before you review: Spend at least 20 seconds occupying your mind with the game below. Then try the review questions. Don’t go straight to the review now—let your working memory empty out first. Last month, our game was "Apt Adjective Anagrams." I invented a person's name and a brief description of that person, and you unscrambled the letters in the name to form an adjective that aptly describes the person or the person's situation. From the previous issue: Tia Fauns runs a sweatshop and is filthy rich. Answer: Perhaps she made a bargain with the devil: her lifestyle is Faustian. Next, a new game for September: Complete the Clichés! In each issue this month, I'll present a general theme and a handful of common expressions that apply to it--but only the first few words of each expression. See if you can complete them!  To keep things interesting, I've picked a mixture of phrases both new and familiar to me. I hope some will pique your curiosity and inspire you to Google them for their meanings and backstories. (Please try that first, and if your search turns up empty, email me for help.) If you're playing this game with the kids in your family or your class, you might enjoy talking together about what the phrases mean. Enjoy! Try these today. The theme is "I messed up somehow:" A. To fall between two... B. The best-laid... C. Between the cup and... review today's word: 1. Some opposites of DISCOMFIT are A. DELIGHT and ENTERTAIN. B. DARKEN and DEEPEN. C. CALM and RELIEVE. 2. It's a comedy of discomfiture, with characters _____. A. tripping on banana peels and slapping each other B. staring, awkward and silent, into the camera C. bursting into spirited song and dance Answers are below. a final word: Make Your Point is crafted with love and brought to you each weekday morning by Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. From Liesl's blog:    36 ways to study words.    Why we forget words, & how to remember them.    How to use sophisticated words without being awkward. To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes. Answers to review questions: 1. C 2. B