Word of the Day: Obfuscatory

Not because I don’t know what it means but because I’ve realized it’s impossible to pronounce without practice, at least for me. How about you?

I usually have no problem pronouncing words, so I was worried I had some weird brain tick, some micro-aneurysm, that had impacted my ability to voice this one particular word. But, if you think about it, it’s an amazingly poorly designed word. The first thing wrong is the “b” and “f” side by side. Both sounds are created at the front of the mouth, with the lips, so the temptation is to insert an extra syllable in between them. If the word were in more common usage this would likely start to happen, thereby accelerating the process of language change (a phenomenon known as epenthesis). I also find the transition from the soft “s” followed by the hard “c” awkward to manage, kind of like the controlled skid they teach you in driving school. It makes me want to add an extra “ta-” syllable to the word, “obfusca-ta-tory.”

Anyway. I was just struck by a word that’s perfectly transparent when I encounter it in its written form but throws my tongue into convulsions when I attempt to voice it.