What a language!

Can't think of the story it comes from, but one of P G Wodehouse's tales contains the line "I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled". Funny, yes?  But why, if disgruntled is a genuine English word, isn't there a word "gruntled"?  There are in fact a whole list of what are referred to as "unpaired words" - words which look as though they should have an opposite, but do not. Words like "nonchalant", "insipid" and "gormless".  There ain't no such words as chalant, sipid and gormful.  The Simpsons often gets laughs from the same idea - they used the "gruntled" one as well and also in one episode had Flanders talking about "refenestrating" Edna Krabappel who had climbed out of a window to meet him. Defenestrate is of course a legitimate word meaning to throw out of a window.