Writing World

Bill W · September 23, 2023

Let me expand on that definition.

Imbroglio: An acutely painful, extremely confused, embarrassing, or complicated misunderstanding.

Bill W · September 23, 2023

Walking into a heated disagreement and misunderstanding between my two best friends, I turned around an left, because I refused to be pulled into the imbroglio.

drpaladin · September 23, 2023

Imbroglio is Italian, but the Italians got it from the French embrouiller. We began using the more French embroil, but then directly adopted the Italian noun as well.

I guess we had so many confused messes or scandals we needed more ways to describe them.

JamesSavik · September 23, 2023

Last night at one of the local high school football games, a complicated imbroglio broke out among a bunch of students, parents, and referees over a pass interference call that ended with four people being jailed for disorderly conduct. It was a bad call: for the referee, and the parents who pushed it too far.

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Myr: Some people are so talented in sowing chaos that they can cause an imbroglio just passing through an area.

Amen to that, bro!

Edited September 23, 2023 by JamesSavik

sandrewn · September 24, 2023

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imbroglio - (noun) - 1: an involved, confusing situation; 2: a confused misunderstanding

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All those mentioned are interesting.

I for one have used brouhaha(hubbub, uproar) to describe similar situations.

The English language borrowed brouhaha directly from French in the late 18th century, but its origins beyond that are uncertain—not quite the subject of noisy brouhaha but perhaps more modest debate. What’s less arguable is that brouhaha is fun to say, as are many of its synonyms, including hubbub, williwaw, hullabaloo, bobbery, and kerfuffle. And many of these, also like brouhaha, tend to suggest a certain judgment that the reason for all the foofaraw is a bit silly, or at least not worth getting all worked up about. A dad joke, for example, might raise some brouhaha, even though it’s really no reason for an uproar to brew. Haha!

I liked this example given:

The clubs logged a combined 39 minutes in the sin bin during Thursday’s meeting, turning a weekday tilt in the dog days of March into a vintage brouhaha.