More words that are easy to confuse.

Tortuous/ torturous

The adjective tortuous means having many twists and turns. It can also mean too lengthy and complex. The word originates from a Latin term meaning to twist. The same word origin is found in the medical condition torticollis, or twisted neck. Patients who suffer from torticollis have heads twisted to one side. This often painful condition can happen from birth or be the result of damage to the neck muscles. The adjective torturous means to cause extreme pain and suffering. This term derives from an old French word, also familiar in English: torture. If something is torturous, it has to do with torture. The word torture is from the Latin, involving twisting of arms to cause pain when prisoners were being interrogated one thousand years ago. Even native speakers of English confuse the similar words tortuous and torturous. It is a challenge for writers of Thai English to avoid making mistakes when writing these words in academic research papers and theses. One sure way to lessen the chances of making errors is to remember that each word has another word quite like it that is often confusing. If we keep this in mind, we can decide not to use these terms at all in our writing, and just use other words with the same meaning. This is almost always a choice in English, using words that are shorter, simpler, and easier to spell instead of long, difficult, challenging words. Unfortunately, many students believe that to make a serious impression in their research they should use formal and complex words. This does not make their theses easier to read, and often results in a tortuous prose style that is torturous for ajarns to read. If we want to be sure to never confuse tortuous and torturous, then instead of the word tortuous, we may write twisted or even convoluted. Instead of the word torturous, we may write painful or agonizing. If we cannot think of another word with the same meaning for tortuous or torturous, or any other English word, there are several websites that provide synonyms in a matter of seconds, such as Thesaurus.com If we put the word tortuous in this website, we get the primary result:

• circuitous
• convoluted
• indirect
• labyrinthine
• meandering
• serpentine
• twisting
• winding

As with any suggestion from an online service such as spell check or an online dictionary, it is up to us to make the ultimate choice of which word is closest to the one we want or need. If we are offered long words that we do not understand, keep looking down the list until we find something that we do understand. Some students may not be comfortable with the term circuitous, since it is difficult to spell and rarely seen in everyday English. Instead, we may be better off choosing winding or twisting as alternatives to tortuous, depending on what our sentence says. Keep in mind that these are just the main alternatives offered by this website, on a background of dark highlighting. There are secondary meanings as well, presented against a somewhat lighter background. Some of these may be helpful as well, if we do not find what we prefer in the main alternatives:

• anfractuous
• bent
• crooked
• curved
• flexuous
• involute
• mazy
• meandrous
• roundabout
• sinuous
• snaky
• vermiculate

Again, some of these are just as complex and confusing as the word tortuous, but there are also a few simple choices such as crooked. It is up to us which word we decide to select for our writing. The purpose of the website is only to give us more choices, not to tell us what to do. If we look up the word torturous on this website, we also get alternatives. If we pay attention to the similarity of the two words, we will note that the word torturous, meaning to cause pain, cannot be written without the letter r in the middle. This letter r is also found in the word torture. We may try to remember that the other word that resembles torturous does not have this letter r in the middle. So, without the letter r, the word must not be about torture, but rather about something else. This kind of instinctive feeling about words takes a lot of time to develop, especially for Thai English writers. However, it can be done.

Some usage examples follow:

• If Pakistan is to come out of its tortuous identity crisis, it needs to accept its non-Muslim history as its own.
• Well, transition can be a long and tortuous process, especially in politics.
• After decades of fighting and tortuous debate, it is still unclear what a federal Myanmar would look like.
• A Scottish threat to withhold this assent may not amount to a full veto but it could frustrate and delay an already tortuous legislative process in Westminster.
• Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC): “The process by which this approval has been granted has been unnecessarily tortuous.”
• John Arnone argues that animals don’t have rights because they don’t take responsibility for their conduct. Using that “logic” it would be perfectly appropriate to eat and do torturous medical research on severely retarded or insane human beings who also may not be able to take responsibility for what they do. Should we also torture those who have advanced Alzheimer’s disease?
• They showed up in the team’s red jerseys, defying the torturous heat and humidity that prevailed in the city.
• The industry was “torturous” at times, she admits. “I’m not that kind of single-eyelid girl who’s instantly recognisable,” she says. “You’ll go to 20 castings in a day and come back with nothing, and it’s devastating. It’s like they’re shopping for clothes – you’re picked over, assessed and put aside.”
• Driving the SLC 43 in the city can be torturous for some, particularly the ladies, due to the heavy steering and the stiff suspension, although the ground clearance is generous and helps you get over bumps and bridges without scraping the underbody.
• Being a typical Singaporean, I still very much prefer the more affordable and tastier hawker centre fare, like bak chor mee or chicken rice. Not being able to eat at hawker centres was torturous.
• Other novels shortlisted include “Hot Milk” by South African-born British author Deborah Levy, who depicts a torturous relationship between mother and daughter in a Spanish village.
• “It was a little torturous at the Olympics,” Lang Ping said. “I hope my players won’t torture me anymore.”
• Thai fat bike rider Yuttapong Chatchawanwan beats the odds to finish a three-day race through the snow in the Swiss Alps. Thailand has a new sports hero in the form of Yuttapong Chatchawanwan, the country’s first and only competitive fatbike rider – indeed in Asia – who last week landed a very respectable 40th ranking at the Snow Bike Festival 2016. Held in Gstaad, Switzerland, this second edition of Europe’s winter festival of biking, saw Yuttapong going up against world-famous cyclists Tomas Misser from Spain and local hero Johann Tschopp who came in first and second respectively. “It was more torturous than enjoyable,” says Yuttapong, who arrived back in Thailand not to the country’s habitual warmth but a decidedly chilly spell. “The cold there is extremely unpleasant. My feet and hands were numb and very painful. At some points I was really scared of developing frostbite and requiring the amputation of my extremities.”

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).