PLEASE FORGIVE ME, Philip

Pitfalls of Using Pitfall Synonyms

I’ve got too much time on my hands. You’ll see.

Type “pitfall” into Unsplash and this is one of the two images you’ll get. That’s either the biggest rubber ducky ever or a super-mini miniature model of Hong Kong with a normal-sized rubber duck in the foreground. Photo by Rostyslav Savchyn on Unsplash

Any good synonym-finder will show you dozens of synonyms for most words.

Type in “trump” for example, and be rewarded with: outweigh, worst, shame, lick, rout, clobber, surmount, crush, exceed, overbear, subdue, trounce, whip, trash, and skunk. And of course: fart.

Make of all that what you will.

Similarly, the word “pitfall” has many synonyms. Among them: risk, hitch, snag, are listed as the best matches in the synonym finder I stumbled onto. But also listed are: catch, gotcha, booby trap, land mine, kicker, gimmick, catch-22, trap, hazard, peril, joker, and snare. There are others, all far less robust and/or fitting.

But as is famously said “all synonyms are not created equal”, except, of course, in the case of “trump” and “fart” where there’s perfect agreement.

Doubt me? I’ll prove it to you.

We’ll call this next section:

Pitfalls gone wild

Pitfall, as in land mine

He threw his frisbee perfectly. Then I handed him my frisbee to throw. I wonder where he’ll land mine?