Kempt and kept
Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2018 2:12 am
Just came across this one in a newspaper article on-line:
On Tuesday afternoon shattered glass from the broken front windows was scattered all over the well-kempt front yard.
It prompted me to explore kempt. Apparently it means well-kept from ME cemd meaning combed.
But this is nearly an orphan-negative these days. Unkempt we read and hear often enough, but kempt is dying. So, well-kempt is probably a malapropism for well-kept.
The question then is: Is well-kempt also a tautology?
And does kept share an ancestry?
On Tuesday afternoon shattered glass from the broken front windows was scattered all over the well-kempt front yard.
It prompted me to explore kempt. Apparently it means well-kept from ME cemd meaning combed.
But this is nearly an orphan-negative these days. Unkempt we read and hear often enough, but kempt is dying. So, well-kempt is probably a malapropism for well-kept.
The question then is: Is well-kempt also a tautology?
And does kept share an ancestry?