Building blocks

‘Positive’ and ‘negative’ affixes.

THE MOE co-ordinator e-mailed me as follows: “A colleague of mine came upon an online article about words or phrases that only have a negative connotation, e.g. disgruntled, dishevelled and out of whack”, and asked whether I would be interested in writing an article on the subject. Even before the hint, I had for a long time pondered over the very same topic and wondered whether it would be of any interest. Heck! No matter. Hence the following spiel.