Cranky Words and Cool Words

Lecture 22

T

he great Mark Twain chronicled human hypocrisy and foibles with
wit and sarcasm. He is known for such curmudgeonly quotes as “The
more I learn about people, the more I like my dog.” Although Twain
was known for his sarcasm, there was always an undercurrent of warmth
and humanity in his writing. However, in our own lives, we often deal with
crabby people who don’t share Twain’s tempering warmth. We also deal
with people on the opposite end of the emotional spectrum—the reserved
and dispassionate. In this lecture, we’ll look at a host of wonderful words to
use for both these types of people—the cranky and the cool.

Splenetic (adjective)

Bad-tempered, irritable, or spiteful.

z In general, a splenetic person is full of anger. Think of the professor

who’s so prickly that you’re afraid to ask a question in class for fear

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into a rage at the slightest provocation. Put simply, splenetic people

are ill-tempered cranks.

z The word splenetic is actually related to spleen, which was considered

the seat of moroseness and bad temper in medieval physiology.

z English has a wide variety of synonyms for splenetic, including

bristly, SULFNO\, crabby, FUDQN\, crotchety, FDQWDQNHURXV, irascible

(easily provoked), testy (irritated by small annoyances), and

dyspeptic (gloomy, sullen, and irritable).

Fractious (adjective)

Unruly; hard to manage; rebellious.