The whole point of published writing is to put enough effort into one-to-many communication to be clear, concise, and expressive. Finding the right words (not the fanciest or rarest words) helps writing to better transmit intention from author to reader.
Careful revision and editing should be celebrated as expressing appreciation for readers, not sneered at as inauthentic.
I guess someone needs a better dictionary (this was sourced from Dictionary.app on MacOS, btw...)
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> I guess someone needs a better dictionary (this was sourced from Dictionary.app on MacOS, btw...)
I think you are reinforcing the authors point. That definition most certainly does not present a mental image of prose in which the best word is 'facile'. Instead it makes me think that 'facile' is almost indistinguishable from 'ignorant'.
Compare that definition to the one from Websters 1913-1928 definition:
Fac"ile (?) a. [L. facilis, prop., capable of being done or made, hence, facile, easy, fr. facere to make, do: cf. F. facile. Srr Fact, and cf. Faculty.] 1. Easy to be done or performed: not difficult; performable or attainable with little labor.
*Order . . . will render the work facile and delightful.*
Evelyn.
2. Easy to be surmounted or removed; easily conquerable; readily mastered.
*The facile gates of hell too slightly barred.*
Milton.
3. Easy of access or converse; mild; courteous; not haughty, austere, or distant; affable; complaisant.
*I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet.*
B. Jonson.
4. Easily persuaded to good or bad; yielding; ductile to a fault; pliant; flexible.
*Since Adam, and his facile consort Eve,
Lost Paradise, deceived by me.*
Milton.
*This is treating Burns like a child, a person of so facile a disposition as not to be trusted without a keeper on the king's highway.*
Prof. Wilson.
5. Ready; quick; expert; as, he is facile in expedients; he wields a facile pen.
We can certainly compare definitions and arrive at our own conclusions about the effectiveness of communication their usage imbues - but an omitted definition? We cannot argue over words that are not defined, whether by omission in literature (dictionaries) or by virtue of the reader being, to put it blunt, simply too lazy to check another dictionary ..
Some apparently less common senses that Merriam Webster gave me:
- archaic : mild or pleasing in manner or disposition
- ready, fluent
- poised, assured
So what’s a “facile piece of writing”? Something that was easy to write? Maybe too easy to write? Or easy to read? (Or too easy to read…)
Well, something being easy is definitely an insult in the minds of pretentious people.
Miss Adebayo visited and said something about grief, something nice-sounding and facile: Grief was the celebration of love, those who could feel real grief were lucky to have loved. —Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun
“Joker” takes off from a facile premise and descends into incoherent political trolling as a result of scattershot plotting and antics—its director, Todd Phillips, appears not to see what he’s doing. —The New York Times
Unless you read a lot into definition 4 of Webster's, the app dictionary, or even the word 'shallow,' gives a result much more accurate to how I've seen the word actually used. With more than a century and a half since the dictionary was first published, seems like plenty of time for a shift in meaning to happen.
facile, a.
(ˈfæsaɪl, -ɪl)
Forms: 5–6 facyl(l)e, 6–8 facil(l, 5– facile.
[a. Fr. facile, ad. L. facil-is easy to do; also of persons, easy of access, courteous, easy to deal with, pliant, f. facĕre to do.]
1.1 That can be accomplished with little effort; = easy 11. Now with somewhat disparaging sense. †Formerly used as predicate with inf. phrase as subject, and in phrase facile and easy.
1483 Caxton Æsop 97 It is facyle to scape out of the handes of the blynd. 1538 Starkey England i. iv. 133 As the one ys ful of hardnes and dyffyculty‥so the other ys facyle and esy. 1577 Holinshed Scot. Chron. I. 449/1 They‥thought it easie and facile to be concluded. 1641 Prynne Antip. Epist. 4, I gathered with no facil labour, the most of those Materials. 1676 Worlidge Cyder (1691) 236 The more facile making of the linnen manufacture. a 1703 Beveridge Serm. xci. Wks. 1729 II. 126 All other acts of piety will be facile and easy to him. 1856 Froude Hist. Eng. I. 357 Having won, as he supposed, his facile victory. 1876 C. M. Davies Unorth. Lond. 250 The work appears facile.
1559 W. Cuningham Cosmogr. Glasse 109 The waye is very facile, and without great laboure. 1607 Topsell Four-f. Beasts (1673) 152 Yet have they found out this facile and ready course. 1639 Fuller Holy War iii. ii. (1647) 112 His Holinesse hath a facile and cheap way both to gratifie and engage ambitious spirits. a 1718 Penn Tracts Wks. 1726 I. 703 It will render the Magistrates Province more facil. 1807 Vancouver Agric. Devon (1813) 463 Baiting‥in the manner performed on the continent, is an infinitely more economical and facile mode of administering refreshment to a jaded animal. 1860 Tyndall Glac. ii. ix. 271 The facile modes of measurement which we now employ.
1531 Elyot Gov. i. v, As touchynge grammere there is at this day better introductions and more facile, than euer before were made. 1579 Digges Stratiot. ii. vii. 47 We have by the former Rules produced this playne and facile Aequation. 1633 Sc. Acts Chas. I, c. 34 The short and facile grammer. 1644 Milton Educ. 100 Those poets which are now counted most hard, will be both facil and pleasant. 1676 Worlidge Cyder (1691) 103 To make this curious Machine more useful and facile. 1786 T. Woolston Let. in Fenning Yng. Algebraists' Comp. (1787) p. v, It having been long considered as a most facile Introduction to Algebra. 1797 A. M. Bennett Beggar Girl (1813) II. 24 The harp and the piano-forte were equally facile to Rosa.
1605 B. Jonson Volpone iii. ii, This author‥has so modern and facile a vein Fitting the time and catching the court⁓ear. 1657 Austen Fruit Trees ii. 204 One man excells‥in a facile and ready expression. 1796 Ld. Sheffield in Ld. Auckland's Corr. (1862) III. 371 Your‥happy facile expression in writing. 1820 L. Hunt Indicator No. 31 (1822) I. 246 On the facile wings of our sympathy. 1865 Swinburne Atalanta 1641 Deaths‥with facile feet avenged. 1873 Symonds Grk. Poets v. 144 Stesichorus was one of those facile and abundant natures who excel in many branches of art. 1886 Stubbs Med. & Mod. Hist. iii. 57 To the facile pen of an Oxford man we owe the production of the most popular manual of our history.
c 1590 Greene Fr. Bacon i. iii, Facile and debonair in all his deeds. 1638 Featly Transubt. 219 A young Gentleman of a facile and affable disposition. 1782 F. Burney Diary 12 Aug., My father is all himself—gay, facile, and sweet. 1844 Disraeli Coningsby iii. v, Manners, though facile, sufficiently finished. 1876 Holland Sev. Oaks x. 134 He was positive, facile, amiable.
1541 Elyot Image Gov. 88 Your proper nature is mylde, facile, gentyll, and wytty. 1631 Weever Anc. Fun. Mon. 116 She was of a more facile and better inclined disposition. 1655 Fuller Ch. Hist. v. v. §7 Q. Elizabeth‥A Princesse most facil to forgive injuries. 1670 Milton Hist. Eng. Wks. 1738 II. 80 However he were facil to his Son, and seditious Nobles‥yet his Queen he treated not the less honourably. 1851 Sir F. Palgrave Norm. & Eng. I. 297 The guilty sons were too happy to avail themselves of his facile tenderness.
1511 Colet Serm. Conf. & Ref. in Phenix (1708) II. 8 Those canons‥that do learn you‥not to be too facile in admitting into holy orders. 1556 Lauder Tractate 251 Be nocht ouir facill for to trow Quhill that ȝe try the mater throw. c 1610 Sir J. Melvil Mem. (1683) 103 Facil Princes‥promote them [Flatterers] above faithful Friends. 1648 J. Beaumont Psyche xvii. cxcvii, Alas, That facil Hearts should to themselves be foes. 1671 Milton P.R. i. 51 Adam and his facil consort Eve Lost Paradise. 1805 Foster Ess. ii. vi. 192 The tame security of facile friendly coincidence.
1887 Grierson Dickson's Tract. Evidence §35 Proof that the granter of a deed was naturally weak and facile‥has been held to reflect the burden of proving that [etc.].
1667 Milton P.L. iv. 967 Henceforth not to scorne The facil gates of hell too slightly barrd.
c 1523 Wolsey in Fiddes Life ii. (1726) 114 His countries, whose parts non of the Lords or Commons would soe facile inclyne unto. 1548 Hall Chron. (1809) 316 Whatsoever were purposed to hym they‥might easely se and facile heare the same. 1560 Rolland Crt. Venus ii. 80 The Muses‥mair facill ȝour mater will consaif, Fra time that thay heir ȝour enarratiue.When used derogatorily it also carries an implication that something is 'pretending to be easy' while not actually being so. It might also tie in with Facsimile, but that might be a false etymology on my part. Which I guess ties this back to pretentiousness, but not quite in the way you meant to :).
Thinking ambiguity can be removed if you only use common words is misguided. You will get writing that is bland and lacks nuance and you may limit the palette of what you can convey, but even then without a fixed exhaustive definition for every word there is ambiguity in shades of meaning.
For example, what exactly does “common” mean above? “bland”? (writing is not a food, is it?) what precisely does it mean for writing to have “nuance”? and so on.
It depends on overall style, but I generally enjoy writing that thoughtfully sprinkles around less common or even invented (DFW) words. It keeps me on my toes—human memory is not perfect, if I haven’t had to consult the dictionary in a while then my vocabulary must be degrading.
This meaning has diverged from French/Spanish, where the word still just means "easy".
Overall, based on all of the comments in this subthread, it seems that “facile” is most often meant simply mean “shallow”… don’t use a fancy word where a simple one will suffice.
It is pretty common for words to diverge in meaning and drop old connotations as they find distinct niches.
In Latin (and thence English) facultas meant ability, while facilitas meant easiness.
The adjective facilis comes from the verb facio (to make or do; from the same PIE root as the English verb 'do'), and meant something that can be done/made; something easy, ready, or quick; or someone friendly, courteous, or compliant.