My word, who needs the aggravation

A favorite online reference of mine is dictionary.com. I use it frequently for this blog and when I come across unfamiliar words during my online reading.

Hey, it happens.

A feature on the site is Word of the Day. For the most part, I’ve ignored it. Why? So many of the words are quite obscure, which means I’ll rarely have occasion to use them. That’s aggravating, and I don’t need more aggravation in my life.

I felt out of character today, so I glanced at the Word of the Day – obtest – and was immediately stumped. I’ve never seen the word in textbooks, articles, editorials, periodicals, novels and others reading materials, nor have I heard it uttered in any context.

Have you?

The definition

obtest  \ ob-TEST \  , verb;

1. To supplicate earnestly; beseech.
2. To invoke as witness.
3. To protest.
4. To make supplication; beseech.

Quite frankly, the first definition confuses me. Supplicate means to humbly entreat, petition or request; beseech conveys a sense of urgency. I think the tone of voice when one supplicates would be much more demure and deferential than when one urgently beseeches, which hints at subtle manipulation to bend another’s will in one’s favor.

Today I learned a word that confuses me. A word that confuses me is unusable. So much for avoiding more aggravation in my life.

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Difficult work beats hard labor every time

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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