Thursday, August 4, 2022

Why not say 'relentless'?

Inexorable (adj.):
Unyielding, unrelenting from 1550s (Elizabethan era).
Derived from inexorable and directly from Latin inexorabilis or what "cannot be moved by entreaty, unyielding."
From in- as in "not, opposite of" + exorabilis "able to be entreated."
From exorare "to prevail upon,"
From ex "out" (see ex-) + ลrare "to pray to, beseech" (see orator). Related: Inexorably; inexorability.
-- Online Etymology Dictionary


The word has a respectable English history (with its chain extending to ancient Greek), yet any editor worth his or her salt would scratch it out. "Why use a ten-dollar word when a perfectly good ten-cent word is available!? We're trying to COMMUNICATE, not send readers scurrying to a computer dictionary!"

Preferable substitutes that come to mind: relentless, unstoppable, unswayable. Aside from being much better known words, they collectively express more nuances.

Leave inexorable to academia, where they might have use for it in their inexorable debates.

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