Thursday, October 27, 2011

Unkempt

"Lindsay Lohan appeared in public," said a student, "and her hair was a mess!  She hadn't combed it in weeks!  What do you call that in English?"

Easy--unkempt.  But it's not just hair--anything that is a mess, that is uncared for, can be called unkempt.

This word's history?  Like so many other words, it the past participle of an Old English verb meaning--guess what--to comb! 

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