On Monday, I compared and contrasted the nouns chance and opportunity. I argued that in many circumstances, opportunity is the smarter word choice, unless you intend to imply an element of luck as part of the expression.
Today, it’s a quick look at the words hard and difficult.
Taking the hard road
Hard is a powerful word with fabulous flexibility. As an adjective, dictionary.com lists 41 definitions. As an adverb, add another 9 definitions. Now I’m a writer who happens to be pretty good at math; that’s 50 different meanings.
That’s astounding!
That’s absurd!
That also makes the word fraught with peril. Okay it’s a bit of an overstatement, but the term hard is massively over-used and it lacks elegance.
Making your life difficult
Difficult, on the other hand, sports a mere seven definitions. Compared to hard, the word is an underachiever. It’s also underutilized.
Another attraction for this writer is it’s polysyllabic. And as I’ve written in the blog before, there are occasions when a noun deserves more than one syllable to modify it.
You are so hard to please. NOT!
You are so difficult to please. YES!
It’s not a hard and fast rule, but nor is it a difficult decision. Wherever possible, meaning when the two terms are synonyms, I will opt to use the word with more syllables.
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