Talk:discombobulate

What about Combobulate? If you can discombobulate, than you can combobulate...no?

Unfortunately, language doesn't work like that. Something may disgust you, but it can't gust you, because gust did not enter the English language. It could in Old French, but only one of the words become an English word. --EncycloPetey 00:55, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

You can be gusted off your feet by a strong blast of wind. I just defined it. :P 220.224.246.97 23:58, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Combobulated actually gets 8,770 Ghits. Combobulate gets 3,520. Another way that language works is that "lost positives" have a way of being backfiled — especially when it's a fun word to say like this one. Language, like nature I suppose, abhors a vacuum. I'll have to check to see if OED or any of those types have taken note. Elipongo 19:21, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Was originally "discombobricate" per Online Ety Dictionary. Most hits at Books.Google.com are scanning errors for dis-combobulate. There are a very few uses (not "mentions" in dictionaries and word lists). Discombobulate is an example of a word coined as a joke. "Recombobulate" (!!!) and "combobulate" may be taking the joke too far. DCDuring TALK 02:15, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

-- In modern Italian the word "SCOMBUSSOLATO" sounds a lot like it. Scombussolato is someone "confused" who has "lost the compass" (bussola). Just a personal theory, I bet that is the origin of the word.

• Yes. See our translation of (deprecated template usage) scombussolare. SemperBlotto (talk) 16:03, 21 August 2012 (UTC)