Grammar and Pessimism

When we learn a new word, it can be helpful to ask the following question: What would the opposite of this word be?

In our previous lesson, we explored optimism, a hopeful view about the present and future.

Today we explore pessimism, not being hopeful about the present and future.

In other words, optimism and pessimism are somewhat like opposite sides of a coin.

Pessimism is a noun.

The online etymology dictionary tells us that the word dates to seventeen ninety four.

At the time, it meant the worst condition possible.

The word came to English from French.

By eighteen fifteen, pessimism came to suggest the quality of making worse in thought the evils of life, or to look only on the dark side.

The online etymology dictionary also tells us that English speakers attempted to make a verb form from pessimism in the early eighteen sixties, but the word pessimize did not survive.

In modern times, we often use pessimism to talk about the general feeling or belief that bad things will happen.

From pessimism, we get the noun pessimist, a person who expects the worst or is likely to have bad views on life.

From the noun pessimist, we add an istic ending to get the adjective pessimistic, and when we add an ally ending to the adjective pessimistic, we get the adverb pessimistically.

We have a group of words: two nouns, an adjective, and an adverb.

How do English speakers use these words in everyday situations?

Google's ngram viewer contains information from thousands of books.

We can do searches in databases for American English, English fiction, and so on.

What we find is that in general the most commonly used word before the noun pessimism is the short word of, so you are likely to read something like this.

I don't think so," he said in a voice full of pessimism, "or this, there are many causes for the high levels of pessimism in our society.

The most common word that comes before the noun pessimist and the adjective pessimistic is the same, a. So you are likely to hear or read something like this: He is a pessimist, or he gave a pessimistic response.

There is another important point about the noun pessimist and the adjective pessimistic.

Google Ngram Viewer suggests that pessimistic is more commonly used by English speakers.

So, if you are unsure about which version to use, remember that the adjective, the word that ends in -ic, might be a better choice.

And the most common word after pessimistic, it is about.

So you might describe yourself as follows: I am pessimistic about the future.

We certainly hope that you are not too pessimistic.

And one final word about the adverb pessimistically.

It is most commonly used after the verb said, so you might hear or read this: "I don't think so," he said pessimistically.

Now let's take some time to work with these ideas.

Fill in the blank with the correct word, noun, adjective, or adverb.

They have a blank view of the world.

The correct answer is this: They have a pessimistic view of the world.

How do we know that the adjective pessimistic is needed?

The short word a gives us a clue, and we know that view is a noun.

In general, adjectives come before a noun and after the short word a. I'm John Russell.