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Thinking about -able, as I'm sure you frequently do, it often occurs to me how extremely useful it is. So much so that it is tackable onto almost every single passivizable (see!) English verb: breakable, doable, drinkable, eatable thinkable and many more.

(My Latin is rusty to put it mildly but isn't there a form with a similar meaning? Gerundive? Amanda means "worthy of love" or something like that and "Delenda est Carthago" means "Carthage should/must be destroyed". It's not the same because "breakable" doesn't mean "should be broken")

So -able has a meaning that suggests an as yet unrealised potential which you can take or leave. It's a sort of modal suffix. "This food is eatable" gives you a choice.

Is it almost more of a verb form than a suffix? It'd be a bit of an eye-opener if it was.

So applying the logic of the above, really if you meet a little child who is crying you should ask "I wonder if this child is comfortable" and if you decide "This child is uncomfortable" then there's no point in trying to comfort the child. Which may be what comfortable once meant.

Perhaps "I'm uncomfortable about this situation" comes closer to some kind of root meaning if it means "I cannot by any means be made to feel at ease".

"I'm comfortable in this comfortable sofa" seems to have completely escaped (twice) from any kind of half-baked notion that -able usually means "has the potential to be_____ed"

Can you think of more -ables that have got away from this root meaning? And if you've got a big fat dictionary can you see if comfortable started off meaning what it "should" mean?

I'm getting a sense of deja-vu as I write this so if I've posted this before then I'm sorry, and my mind is going.

"eatable"?? what happened to "edible"?

Nothing happenened to edible. Nor to fragile, feasible, potable nor to a host of other words that don't have a root that is a recognizable verb.

Well, ok pot is a verb meaning drink. In Shakespeare.

Not usually though as in "I'm potting a very potable Rioja". Which I am.

Edible and eatable have different meanings. Spinach is edible, but rarely eatable.

As I said in another post, English is morphable.

Stephen Jones wrote:Edible and eatable have different meanings. Spinach is edible, but rarely eatable.

I looked in a dictionary and couldn't find the difference. What is it? Or are you making a joke because you don't like spinach?

The SOED hints at the difference.

Edible means fit to be eaten.
Eatable has the sub-meaning of palatable.

So Spinach is fit to be eaten, but in Britishs cuisine is rarely palatable.

So much so that it is tackable onto almost every single passivizable (see!) English verb: breakable, doable, drinkable, eatable thinkable and many more.

Yes, apart from all the "kill" verbs, I think it tags on to any verb quite well.

So Spinach is fit to be eaten, but in Britishs cuisine is rarely palatable.

My British cuisine, Sarah, is quite palatable.

Hoorahable?

http://www.onelook.com/?w=*able&ls=a