The Secret Stead is the pen name of a UK-based writer and
The word for today is "discombobulate".Discombobulate -verb (used with object; to discombobulate something)
[dis-kuhm-bob-yuh-leyt]
to confuse or disconcert someone; upset; frustrate: The law lecturer was completely discombobulated by the heckling students
The word is an Americanism, and said to be from the speech frontier of the Wild West, where it came into existence in the 1830s. It has been described as a fanciful alteration of discompose or discomfort, and in the early days of its genesis it sometimes appeared as discombobracate or discomboberate. It's a prime example of how the Americans imported English, and then forged it to meet their own needs.
Research reveals that no one knows for certain how the word came about, though some suggest it might have been the product of a grandiloquent salesman grossly lacking in word skills.
For other examples of early American inventiveness, have a look at the slang term "sodbuster" for farmer, coming from the name of a steel plough invented for use on the Great Plains of America, or the even odder American combination "sockdolager", a term for a heavy, decisive blow, or "sawbones", slang for a doctor or surgeon.
Critics suggest these words are undeniable proof of America's devil-may-care attitude towards the English language, enlarging our vocabulary by the malformation of its basic elements. The word discombobulate, however, has got a real honesty to it that makes you like it, despite making you want to giggle.
Published 10 January, 2011
