infelicity

A minor infelicity is the distractingly busy set by David Gallo.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 26, 2026

For a more complete and very funny deconstruction of its infelicity, read Jonathan Last’s riff in The Bulwark.

From New York Times ● Jul. 25, 2020

This type of verbal infelicity underscores the limitations of automatic, computerized word and spelling-check mechanisms, whereby a word or words can slip through undetected, regardless of the context of usage, however inapposite.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 15, 2019

Yet the sheer variety of interactions makes up for the occasional infelicity.

From Slate ● Oct. 26, 2017

A little vagueness of thought, a slight infelicity in the choice of words would be like a cloud upon the mountain, obscuring the scene with a damp and chilling mist.

From English Synonyms and Antonyms With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions by James Champlin Fernald

Somewhere beyond the roadie’s own flaws and infelicities, the pages of Mal’s diaries, painstakingly recorded from 1962 to the mid-1970s, reveal an abiding affection for his son.

From Salon ● Nov. 9, 2023

Then there’s the error-prone syntax — infelicities in editing and writing that add up quickly.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 10, 2022

And so, as I write, a little tab with a G on it is hovering to the side, ready to flag my infelicities of expression.

From Slate ● Feb. 8, 2022

To seriously tackle his infelicities and solecisms would've placed someone in the unenviable position of a barber shaving a dog: where do you stop?

From The Guardian ● Apr. 17, 2013

In those first weeks, Bolles’s topic varied each day, depending on factors as unpredictable as the Seattle weather or what particular infelicities of technique he had noticed in the previous practice.

From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown