Some Nuanced Words

02 Apr, 2025

Words are cool. What's more fascinating than words however are their synonyms -- those words that add depth to a word. Consider the word 'good'. I could say I'm feeling good today, but that doesn't provide you much insight. What if I said I'm feeling exalted today? Or that I was on cloud nine? Those two phrases would give you a much better idea of my state compared to the umbrella term 'good'.
With that, here are some word pairs I've found interesting lately:

Satisficing vs. Optimizing

Optimizing is always looking for better. Satisficing is looking for enough -- anything that's above a certain threshold or that meets a specific requirement.
As an example, consider someone looking to buy a table. Someone purely focused on optimizing for their money's worth would probably look endlessly for that perfect table -- that table that satisfies their use case that's also inexpensive. On the other hand, someone who's aiming to satisfice would browse until they find the first table that meets some good amount of their requirements, and buy that table.

In some cases, optimizing is necessary and is the right play. In other circumstances however (like being a student), I would argue that satisficing is more beneficial. For example, when students (or at least high schoolers where I am) think of test scores, aiming for the best score possible is in some ways detrimental; instead of focusing on the foundations to success, we try to go for the cherry on top without making sure our cake is well done beforehand, frequently leading to failure and dissatisfaction. That doesn't mean that going for the 100 is bad, it just means that without a dash of realism, your (metaphorical) cake will always end up looking like a mess to you.

Risk vs. Uncertainty

Risk is pretty well-defined - it's the probability that some sort of loss happens. Uncertainty on the other hand is more undefined - if something is uncertain, it's hard to predict what will happen and whether it will be a win or a loss.
For example, consider a pond covered in ice. Should you step on it? Maybe the ice will break where you step, and maybe it won't - it all depends on how thick the ice is, how cold the temperature is, how heavy you are, and a lot of other variables. In that sense, while you could theoretically make a mathematical model to predict whether the ice breaks or not, in reality, there's no quantifiable way to measure the risk, and with that first step, you're uncertain about what will happen.

In regular every day conversation, saying that something is risky implies that 60%+ of the time, something undesirable will result. In contrast, something that is uncertain really implies that either the result is unpredictable (e.g. how many leaves will fall from this tree today?) or that the probability of a loss or bad outcome is within that 30%-70% range where it's hard to calculate and quantify how bad or good something exactly is.¹

Scrappy vs. Crappy

(Thanks 604.)
Scrappy >> Crappy. I think the key difference between these two words besides their general implication (crappy = bad, scrappy = goodish) is that scrappiness implies a sort of "home-grown"/DIY/'crude' vibe where the goal of getting something done triumphs over the processes and the nuances to get that thing done, and implies a willingness to utilize whatever at hand to make something work. On the other hand, crappiness just implies the finished product sucks. Doesn't matter the process or the person or the material, if something's crappy, it sucks. And while something scrappy can be crappy, more often than not, that crappiness is overlooked and that scrappiness is seen favorably as it conveys the perseverance and perhaps creativity of the creator rather than the actual quality of the finished product.