Prose misunderstood is justice denied

When words such as lacerate and extirpate play key roles in the major news stories of the day, it is time for aggrieved parties — readers — to turn to their dictionaries, lest they are also accused of being unduly judgemental or not penitent enough about their incomprehension.

Clearly, there are occasions when the need to obfuscate converges with the temptations of the thesaurus — now freed from the confines of book covers to obligingly flaunt its synonymous wares on the internet — but, surely, ordinary readers should not be made to bear the brunt of their expansive vocabulary? After all, the selection of the succinct if obscure word “flagitious” to convey an act that is heinous, atrocious, vicious, wicked, villainous, monstrous and depraved may be deemed judicious by experts, it is certainly not intelligible to many.

Nor would it be appropriate for anyone to be unnecessarily adamantine about using words that are not common currency particularly when conveying complicated arguments or penitence. In such cases, it is better that they recuse themselves from such bombastic proclamations lest they incur the wrath of aggrieved parties including — and other than —their readers for assaulting their sensibilities. For, some may even infer from the tone and tenor of long-winded perorations that prose misunderstood is justice denied.