The potentially discombobulating swirl of New York City’s Times Square Leo Patrizi/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Leo Patrizi/Getty Images Feeling a little confused, concerned, off-kilter, out of sorts? Sounds like you’re discombobulated. It’s a fitting word for an unsettling feeling. It sounds formal, maybe even fancy. But it’s actually the creation of some good old-fashioned American jokesters. “The word is very much an American invention,” says Joshua Blackburn, the U.K.-based author of The Language-Lover’s Lexipedia. “And it seems to have been part of a fad in the 19th century for inventing rather fancy, grand and rather humorous-sounding words.” He says the first part of the word, “discom,” was likely inspired by real words like discompose and discomfort. The final part, “ulate,” also reads like many other Latin-derived verbs (think tabulate, regulate, populate). The wild card is the middle part, that funny-sounding “bob.” Blackburn, citing linguist Ben Zimmer’s work, thinks “bob” comes from “bobbery,” an Anglo-Indian word for commotion or noise. Taken all together, Blackburn says, it works. “The sound of the word seems to …