LACKADAISICAL
This is one of those words that, for some reason, reminds me of my teenager years. My Dad used it in the same sentence as "bend yer lazy old back". We seemed to hear it oh, so often...
This word is delightfully evocative, bringing to mind some languid person lolling on a couch while all around goes to ruin, so accurately evoking its modern idea of somebody who lacks enthusiasm and determination or is carelessly lazy.
It owes its origin, strangely enough, to an old saying of regret or dismay, lack-a-day!, a shortened form of alack-a-day!. Alack dates back to medieval times, and probably comes from a dialect word lack that is variously interpreted as failure, fault, reproach, disgrace, or shame. So alack-a-day! originally meant “Shame or reproach to the day!” (that it should have brought this upon me). But over time it became weakened until it became no more than a vapid and vacuous cry when some minor matter went awry.
Later it moved towards the idea of somebody who was affectedly languishing, and thence to someone merely lazy.
Text taken from www.worldwidewords.org It's a fantastic etymology web, very interesting indeed to those who like words as much as I do.
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