Cuffs are so coming back.  You’ll see.

Dear Word Detective:  My wife used the word “dishevelled” in describing my 20-year old suit.  Can I make myself “sheveled,” or “heveled,” or is this simply another lost positive?  I’ll be very gruntled if you can help me out here. — Charlie.

That sounds like my suit (note the singular).  I know it makes me look like a time-traveler from Planet Cheapskate, but I figure that since lapel styles seem to swing between wide and narrow every ten years or so, people will just assume I’m dancing on the bleeding edge of fashion.  I should note that this strategy probably works best if you live in rural Ohio and wear the suit only to weddings and funerals.

As for “disheveled,” if we ever get around to completely overhauling the English language, I would strongly argue in favor of doing away with prefixes such as “dis,” “de,” “un,” and “in” that usually, but not always, signal negation of the rest of the word.  That “not always” is the fly in the ointment.

I’ve written in the past about the word “inflammable,” for instance, which means “likely to catch fire” (from the Latin “inflammare,” the source of our “inflame”).  But since the prefix “in” usually signals “not” (e.g., “invisible” means “not visible”), folks just after World War II were afraid that some people would think “inflammable” means “fireproof” and insulate their homes with gasoline, or something.  So they pushed for adoption of the clearer “flammable” and “non-flammable” instead.  The effort actually worked, and today you rarely see anything labeled “inflammable.”

Similarly, “disgruntled” doesn’t mean “not gruntled,” as if “gruntled” meant “pleased.”  “Gruntled” actually means “angry” (from an animal grunting in anger), and the “dis” in this case is an intensifier, making “disgruntled” mean “very gruntled,” or “really ticked off.”

“Disheveled” (in the US we spell it with only one “l,” but the Brits use two) is another case where “dis” doesn’t exactly meant “not.”  The word “disheveled” is used today to mean “unkempt, untidy, messy or disorderly,” whether in a literal sense (“Her whole appearance was haggard and disheveled,” Trollope, 1862) or figuratively (“In vehement diction, but disheveled grammar,” Saturday Review, 1858).

We adopted “disheveled” from the Old French word “descheveler,” which meant specifically “to undo or disorder the hair” (from “des,” apart, plus “chevel,” hair).  So the “dis” element actually means “apart” or “undone,” not “not.”  (If it meant “not,” then “disheveled” would probably mean “bald.”)

When “disheveled” first appeared in English in the 15th century, it meant literally “with your hair mussed up, hanging loose,” and was usually used to describe women in moments of considerable stress (“Growing distracted with griefe …she went up and downe … all discheveled with her haire about her eares,” 1653).  It wasn’t until the 17th century that “disheveled” came to be applied to untidiness in non-hair-related respects.

Since the “shevel” in “dishevelled” refers to hair and not some lofty standard of neatness, there’s really no way to “shevel” your suit, unless you’d like to bring it to our house and let a few of our cats sleep on it.  Judging by my experience, it would be completely “sheveled” in less than ten minutes.

Dear Word Detective:  The other morning I was listening to Public Radio with my coffee and email, as is my wont most mornings, when in an interview that I otherwise hadn’t been paying much attention to, the PR interviewer said something like “It’s like a wiki, then” and she and the interviewee continued as if  “wiki” meant some sort of communal activity.  I suppose, with the popularity of Wikipedia, that “wiki,” which I heard often during my Navy stint in Hawaii, will change from meaning “quickly” or “hurry” to “communal.”  Any comments on the transformation of “wiki,” or would you like to open source your column so we can all write paragraphs and change the name of the column to WikiWord? — Barney Johnson.

Now there’s a good idea.  I wish you had suggested it sooner.  Unfortunately, now that I’m getting that big bailout from the US Treasury, I’ll no longer be able to afford to be poor.  On the bright side, with all that moolah I’ll be outsourcing the actual writing to Sri Lanka, so we’ll have a whole new range of wildlife appearing in this column.  Cobras are way more exciting than boring old cats and dogs, doncha think?  And they have something over there called a “sloth bear” that looks like pure comedy gold.

Onward.  “Wiki” is indeed a word in Hawaiian meaning “fast” or “quick.”  For most of us, our first exposure to the word “wiki” was in the name of Wikipedia, the collaborative free internet encyclopedia that anyone can edit.  Wikipedia operates on the theory that if a contributor writes something that is factually wrong or deliberately distorted, other contributors can quickly step in and correct the entry.  In practice, however, it’s impossible to know whether the entry you’re reading has been most recently edited by a true expert in the field or by Bozo the Vengeful Clown.

Wikipedia, however, was not the first “wiki” online.  A site called WikiWikiWeb was developed in 1994 by a programmer named Ward Cunningham to facilitate the exchange of ideas among software developers, with an emphasis on making contributions from users quick and easy.  He chose the word “wiki” after riding a shuttle bus called “the Wiki Wiki Shuttle” at the Honolulu airport (“wiki wiki” being a “reduplication” of “wiki” meaning “very quick”).

Many kinds of “wiki” software have since been developed, but all share the basic goal of making contributions by users to a collaborative website (or part of a website) easy.  Many hobby websites, for instance, now include a “wiki” section where visitors can contribute information on the minutiae of basket collecting, model railroading, etc. to a centralized repository.  This sort of site is now what the vast majority of English speakers mean when they use the word “wiki.”

It’s hard to say that the meaning of “wiki” in English has changed, because “wiki” in the Hawaiian sense of “quick” never had much currency in English to begin with.  What we have done is adopt a Hawaiian word and give it a completely new meaning in English.  And there is, of course, no guarantee that we’re done yet.  It’s entirely possible that “wiki” will eventually be used to mean any sort of collaborative activity that relies on the contributions of individuals, from potluck dinners to social movements.