I realized today that shelled pistachios are not as satisfying as pistachios with shells.
which got me thinking...
Isn't the word "shelled" frustrating? What do you call nuts with shells? Unshelled nuts? Why are turtles "shelled" and beetles "shelled," but nuts and clams aren't considered "shelled"...until they're taken out of their shell? And what do you call a nut or clam with a shell? Unshelled isn't a word because it's too paradoxical thanks to the irony of its opposite
"Nail" as a verb works similarly in that the object is regarded as the action of doing something with the object, but it refers to the addition of the object. If you do something to something, you expect the action to be characterized by the presence or possession of features or qualities of the object rather than their absence unless specified otherwise. If someone says "I want that" even without any contraction you assume they do want that, not that they don't want that. That's just how communication works. Even nonverbal kind. So why is it that that particular word, shelled, is the action of removing the object it refers to instead of adding?
Probably because in several old languages, the action came before--or alongside--the noun to first refer only to unwanted rind around a desired core. The Proto-Germanic word skaljo, "piece cut off" and the Middle Low German skel, "to cut" or "to cleave" are a couple of probable origins, suggesting that "shell," despite the various ways its used in the modern English language, was originally used to refer specifically to things that either were or were meant to be removed.
I won't even go into the subject of contradictory prefixes like inflammable.
