Etymology, the study of the origins of words, can often help us to understand the subtle depths of meaning that rest below their taken for granted day-to-day use. This is certainly the case with the word discombobulated, the origin of which knocks our beliefs about the origins of language off balance.
To be discombobulated is to feel as if one’s world has been wrenched out of its ordinary configuration into some kind of new arrangement that feels confusing and wrong. It’s similar to, but not exactly like the emotion of ilinx, the thrilling emotion with tinges of self-dissolution that results from a literal or figurative whirling maelstrom. With discombobulation, we don’t feel a thrill, but a little bit sick, as if our lives have been taken apart and put together with a few parts missing.
There is no Latin root to the word discombobulated. It was invented just a few generations ago, with little relation to any term that came before it, a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious of its own day.
Not every word is an ancient tradition, purposefully created with a full integration into the language’s overall structure. Sometimes, people just make up new words to describe the way they feel. When the word is apt, it survives and becomes a part of the language. Such words bend the concept of scientifically predictable linguistics out of shape. The discombobulate our neat academic theories.
There are no aphorisms about being discombobulated. Words of wisdom are impossible about this emotion, because it doesn’t teach us anything other than the inadequacy of what we have been taught.
All the discombobulated can do is to withdraw, be still, and wait for the feeling to fade as our minds restore our sense of normality.
