Vergrendeled

To be stuck, locked up, frozen-up


"Vergrendeled" uses the prefix "ver", which, according to Wiktionary can be used in three ways, of which the first is the most pertinent:

1. to do or to become what the stem (following this prefix) refers to

We saw this earlier on in the year with "verkaased" which gazelled into "be-cheesed", to become like cheese. Vergrendeled works in much the same way, as it turns the object being refered to into Grendel, the horribly disfigured mythical monster as featured in the epic Poem "Beowulf". To give an impression of what this may look like, let's get into a quick gallery of images of Grendel over the years.

So, while there may be some historical discrepancy about what Grendel actually looked like, we can all agree that his appearance was not something to be desired.

Remember that tale about when you make a funny face, if the wind changes, you face will stay that way? Well, that is a classic example of being vergrendeled. Of course, objects can become vergrendeled too. The first time I heard it I was at a printer store, and a lady complained to the staff:

"My computer is ver-grendeled. Can you come and help"

I had a very graphic image of the computer being horribly disfigured and screaming insanely, which is kind of appropriate.

So, basically, anything that becomes misshapen or stuck in an undesirable way could be vergrendeled. This could be anything from a crashed computer, a skipping CD, a cake which has risen too much, two peaches that have grown into one, a particularly bad car accident, anything like that. The Gazellish way of thinking allows an undesirable situation become a much more descriptive one.


Example Sentence:

"This guy has been totally vergrendeled. What a sucker."