Watz dis?

The prefix dis- usually implies that something is the reverse of something else (e.g. disorganized) or is excluded/taken away (e.g. displaced) or taken apart (e.g. dismantled); it adds a negative connotation to the root words organize/place/ mantel (= frame). But what about discern, which means to understand something – even so it is not easy to grasp – after thoroughly thinking about it? To understand something difficult is certainly a good thing.
Taking something apart, does not necessarily mean to destroy it. Looking at information and picking (cernere) it apart (dis) helps better to understand the whole picture. Similarly, taking (capere) a piece apart (dis) and learning it turns one into a real disciple who is in control (disciplined) of a particular area of knowledge, a discipline.
But even dis- in its meaning of taking something away can convert a root word into something positive. A discount, "counting away" a percentage and thus reducing the price, is nothing anybody would object. And to discover (to take away the cover) and to disentangle (to remove tangles) something makes life more interesting and easier.
A bit more complicated are the words to dispose, to be disposed, and one’s disposition. To dispose of something is quite clear. We take it away from its original position. Yet, putting things into a different position can also mean to sort and organize them, and if our mind is organized, we are disposed to behave in a particular way. Alas, to have a particular disposition or temperament can be a negative as well as quite a positive thing.
Whichever it is, the influence of alcohol will bring it to the fore if the old saying "in vino veritas" is true. If wine doesn't do the trick, maybe brandy, distilled from wine, will. To distill something means to reduce it to drops (stilla) and to get its essence. And when we distill information from a variety of sources, we will - with any luck - be less discombobulated and closer to the truth.