2022-02-08 ศัพท์ น่าสับสน - Set – D - dilemma & difficulty

Revision D

2022-02-08

ศัพท์ น่าสับสน - Set – D - dilemma & difficulty 

แนะนำการใช้ ตามที่ส่วนใหญ่ใช้ แต่ละท้องถิ่น 

ความหมาย อาจผันแปร ตาม ตำแหน่ง/หน้าที่ ในประโยค

 

Dictionary.com:

ออกเสียง dilemma = “dih-LEM-uh”

ออกเสียง difficulty = “DIF-i-kuhl-tee”

 

Common Errors in English Usage Dictionary:

dilemma & difficulty

A dilemma is a difficult choice,

not just any difficulty or problem.

Whether to invite your son’s mother to his high school graduation 

when your current wife hates her is a dilemma. 

 

Cleaning up after a hurricane is just a problem, though a difficult one.

 

The A-Z of Correct English Common Erros in English Dictionary:

dilemma

This word is often used loosely to mean ‘a problem’. 

Strictly speaking it means a difficult choice between two possibilities.

 

Dictionary.com:

HISTORICAL USAGE OF DILEMMA

The word dilemma 

combines di-, a prefix meaning "two,"

with lemma, meaning "a proposition, theme, or subject." 

 

Our world is filled with propositions, themes, and subjects

—mattersabout which we have to make

a variety of decisions as we move through life. 

 

If we are forced to make a choice between two courses of action, 

or between doing something and not doing it, 

and if neither choice is a good one, 

we are in a dilemma in its primary sense

—faced with a double bind, 

caught between Scylla and Charybdis, 

trapped between a rock and a hard place, 

and truly on the horns of a dilemma. 

 

As we can see, 

the sense of dilemma 

that deals exclusively with two unpleasant alternatives

is powerful enough to have engendered a good deal 

of descriptive language over the years. 

 

But in today’s complex environment, 

if people tell you they are in a dilemma, 

you cannot be sure that their problem is restricted to two choices. 

They may be facing a situation of much greater complexity. 

 

While the first meaning is still the most common, 

the broadening of dilemma to include

this more general sense

of "any difficult or perplexing situation or problem," 

is an example of normal language growth. 

 

The first meaning of dilemma, 

involving two choices, remains alive and well. 

But this broader meaning is not only common and acceptable, 

it is found in multiple examples of educated writing.

 

Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

Usage of Dilemma

Although some commentators

insist that dilemma be restricted to instances 

in which the alternatives to be chosen are equally unsatisfactory, 

their concern is misplaced; 

the un-satisfactoriness of the options 

is usually a matter of how the author presents them.

 

What is distressing or painful about a dilemma 

is having to make a choice one does not want to make.

 

The use of such adjectives as terrible, painful, and irreconcilable 

suggests that dilemma is losing some of its unpleasant force.

 

Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

Usage Notes

What Counts as a 'Dilemma'?

Does it have to be between two things?

What to Know

Dilemma has been used as a general synonym 

for problem or predicament 

since the early 20th century, despite some style guides 

insisting it must refer to a difficult choice between two options.

 

What is a dilemma? 

Is it simply a problem one has 

(as in ‘we are facing the dilemma of dealing with the angry prescriptivists’)? 

Or must it be a choice between disagreeable alternatives

(as in ‘we are facing the dilemma of dealing with 

the angry prescriptivists or the drunken linguists’)?

 

Many current style and usage guides 

remain firmly of the opinion that 

a dilemma is only described by the latter of the preceding options.

Dilemma does not mean simply a problem; 

it means a choice between disagreeablealternatives.
— The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, 2015

 

Despite the assurances of The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, our records indicate that 

dilemma is quite often used in a sense that 

we define as “a difficult or persistent problem.”

 

Broad Use of 'Dilemma'

When dilemma first came into use in English, in the early 16th century, 

it was as a term of rhetoric, 

meaning 

“an argument presenting two or more equally conclusive alternatives against an opponent.” 

 

By the end of the 16th century 

the word had begun to broaden, with meanings 

such as “a usually undesirable or unpleasant choice” 

or “a situation involving such a choice.”

 

We begin to see dilemma 

being used in an even more broadened fashion, 

with the simple meaning of “a problem involving a difficult choice,” 

in the 18th century. 

Evidence of this is found 

in authors modifying dilemma with positive terms, 

such as happy and pleasant.

 

People have been complaining about the use of dilemma 

as a synonym of problem or predicament since the 1920s. 

Despite this century-long stream of admonitions (or perhaps because of it) 

the objurgated meaning has become, 

since the second half of the 20th century, 

the most commonly used sense of the word. 

 

Your use of the word in the sense 

of problem or predicament should not be a concern.

 

Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

Words at Play

What's a Dilemma?

Use This Incorrectly, and the Grammar Police Will Be after You

Writers face a dilemma these days: 

use the word dilemma to refer to something that is problematic, 

and they will be called out by grammarians for misusing dilemma.

 

Commentators claim that 

dilemma can't be used to refer to something 

that is merely problematic: 

that the proper use of the word 

is to refer to a choice between two equally unsatisfactory options. 

 

Dilemma came into English as a term used in rhetoric 

to refer to an argument 

in which an opponent is given two options to choose from, 

with both of those options being detrimental to the opponent. 

 

Very soon after that, it came to refer to 

any choice that offered two equally unsuitable or unattainable things

—the proverbial devil and the deep blue sea, 

or the rock and the hard place.

 

Soon after this second meaning appeared, 

dilemma's use broadened again to refer to 

the state of mind marked by someone facing a dilemma:

a sense of uncertainty and doubt. 

 

Shakespeare used this sense in The Merry Wives of Windsor: 

"In perplexity, and doubtful dilemma."

That's where things start getting problematic for dilemma. 

 

A person who is afflicted with doubt and uncertainty 

over what to do might not be faced with the classical dilemma 

(a choice between two equally unsuitable or unattainable options), 

but just any difficult situation. 

 

Additionally, the suitability or attainability of the options presented 

is primarily in the mind of the person faced with the dilemma. 

 

Take a look at this early example:

Fuller has worded his example 

in such a way that it's clear that one of these options, 

while not great, is still more suitable that the other: 

resign and stay alive, or be deposed and get killed. 

In most choices between life and death, life is preferred, 

and so this isn't the "correct" use of dilemma.

 

The word has broadened in use since the 1700s to refer to a problem, 

and not necessarily a problem that involves a choice between two options. 

Take, for example, 

this excerpt found at our entry for dilemma:

 

So if your dilemma is whether to use the word or not, 

you may just find yourself faced with an easy choice after all.

 

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language:

dil′em·mat′ic (dĭl′ə-măt′ĭk) adj.

Usage Note: 

In its traditional use, 

dilemma refers to a situation in which a choice must be made 

between alternative courses of action or argument. 

 

The word is also used more loosely to mean "problem" or "predicament" 

without implying that a choice must be made. 

 

This usage has been criticized by language critics, 

and the Usage Panel still supports this view, 

but this support has been eroding over time. 

 

In our 1999 survey, 58 percent of the Usage Panel rejected the sentence 

Historically, race has been the great dilemma of democracy. 

 

This is a significant decrease from the 74 percent that rejected a similar 

sentence in 1988. 

· It is sometimes claimed that because the di- in dilemma 

comes from a Greek prefix meaning "two," 

the word should be used only when exactly two choices are involved.

 

In 2005, some 58 percent of the Panel reported that they followed 

this restriction in their own writing. 

The remaining 42 percent said that 

the word could acceptably be used for more than two choices. 

It seems unlikely that 

writers will be taken to task for ignoring the two-choice limit.

 

Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

History and Etymology for difficulty

Middle English difficulte, borrowed from Anglo-French & Latin; 

Anglo-French difficulté, borrowed from Latin difficultāt-, difficultās, 

from difficilis "hard to do, troublesome, intractable" 

(from dif-, probably assimilated form 

of dis- DIS- + facilis "easy, accommodating") + -tāt-, -tās -TY 

— more at FACILE

 

NOTE: Latin difficultās presumably goes back to *dis-fakli-tāts 

and follows the same path as the base word, 

from *faklitāts to attested facultās (see FACULTY),

with regular vowel weakeningin a non-initial syllable. 

 

The word difficilis is derivationally peculiar, 

as the prefix dis- is regularly applied only to verbs 

and is not primarily privative

—the expected negative counterpart to facilis should have been *infacilis. 

 

It has been hypothesizedthat dis- in this case is a permutation 

of *dus-, corresponding to Greek dys- "bad, ill" 

(see DYS-; *dus- is otherwise unattested in Latin), 

or that difficilis is modeled on dissimilis "unlike" (see DISSIMILAR;

the adjective similis "like" takes a range of ordinarily verbal prefixes,

perhaps following Greek equivalents). 

Neither solution is entirely satisfactory.

 

Collins COBUILD English Usage:

difficulty

1. 'difficulty'

A difficulty is a problem.

There are a lot of difficulties that have to be overcome.

The main difficulty is a shortage of time.

 

2. 'have difficulty'

If you have difficulty doing something 

or have difficulty in doing something, 

you are unable to do it easily.

I often have difficulty sleeping.

She had great difficulty in learning to read and write.

Be Careful!
Don't say that someone 'has difficulty to do' something.