Carefree lightheartedness is usually a Good Thing, unless those around you are expecting a bit more seriousness, in which case they may characterize you as blithe. The word is Germanic in origin and is related to bliss. The favorite companion of blithe is spirit: the two together are the title of a Noel Coward play. But blithe also attaches to disregard, assumption, and indifference.

Today's verb can look back on a distinguished career beginning in Old English. Rend has remained true to its original meaning, "tear by force," but in modern English it has settled into a more literary role than it began with. The past tense rent is irregular but in keeping with lookalike verbs such as send and bend. The adverb asunder is a regular companion of rent, also the past participle of rend.

Archery has supplied a handful of metaphors that find a home in mainstream English. Today's noun upshot is one of them. Its original meaning was a final shot in an archery match. From this it morphed in very little time to mean "consequence, result, outcome," all of these being things that happen after, and as a result of, something else. A surprising number of upshots are characterized as being "practical."