Take Today's Vocabulary Vitamin and Stop All This Obfuscating

Ready? Obfuscate is your Vocabulary Word Vitamin. (Listen to it here.) The opposite of obfuscate is clarify. You know how it is when you feel as if someone unscrewed the top of your head like a jar lid and poured in dark murky water? You don't? It's just me? At any rate, when you note confusion and delusion but no solution, then you may well be in the presence of someone who obfuscates. One who buries the real issue beneath a pile of .....obfuscation. The older meanings of this vocabulary word seem to imply a deliberate intention to bewilder and befuddle, to complicate and muddy. Now, the vocabulary word is often used in a bit nicer way, meaning primarily to complicate or confuse something, but not necessarily with ill will.

Usually when in the presence of a person performing the act of obfuscation, one finds oneself saying "Get to the point." "Could you clarify that?" Or even "huh?" From now on you can whip out our vocabulary word and intone, "Must you obfuscate, old skate?" (Note here how cleverly I am showing you that the scate in obfuscate is spelled differently than the skate in old skate.) Having swallowed this Vocabulary Word Vitamin, you now know that obfuscate is sort of a co-mingling of the words obscure and complicate, with a bit of a fuss thrown in.

Time to rip this Vocabulary Vitamin asunder: The vocabulary word obfuscate comes from the Latin "fuscus" meaning "dark brown" which explains its early meaning of "to darken" and "to make obscure." Soon it kind of slopped over into "confuse" and from there, to being evasive and unclear. Just as confusion is both the act of and the result of confusing a thing, so obfuscation is the act and result of obfuscating something. Obfuscation is used when someone is deliberately burying information, as in giving confusing directions so you'll never arrive, or accidentally covering over needed information such as forgetting to tell you to hard boil the eggs before you devil them.

The very vocabulary word obfuscate is in itself obfuscating. Which is a good reason to bandy it about and cause people's eyes to glaze over. Use it in everyday conversation, use it in song lyrics. "I'm bewitched, bothered and obfuscated...." "It was obfuscation I know, seeing you alone with the moonlight above you." This will accomplish two things: One, people will be likely to stay away from you. And two, they will stop obfuscating.

Today's Vocabulary Word Vitamin: Obfuscate: AHB-fuh-skayt\ verb

Meaning

1 a : darken *b : to make obscure

2 : confuse

3 : to be evasive, unclear, or confusing

Synonyms for Today's Vocabulary Vitamin: obscure, complicate, confuse, muddy, muddle, cloud, bewilder

Antonyms: clarify, explain, enlighten

Sources:

Merriam Webster OnLine Dictionary

http://www.merriam-webster.com/

alphaDictionary; Dr. Goodword's office

http://www.alphadictionary.com/index.shtml

V2 Vocabulary Training Center

http//vocabulary-vocabulary.com/dictionary/obfuscate.php