wieldy

It is true that wieldy is a word that sounds very unwieldy but I was surprised to hear an ABC politics reporter using it in the sense of ‘awkward or difficult’.

The first citation in the OED dates back to Chaucer: So fresh so yong so weldy seemed he.  In this context the word means ‘flexible’., this flexibility being demonstrated by Troilus in action on the cover of Troilus and Criseyde . A 1751 citation describes a baron who was ‘neither so wieldy nor supple in his joints’.

But generally  wieldy meant ‘capable of being wielded, easily handled or used’. From this we derived unwieldy meaning ‘difficult to handle, awkward to use’.

But it seems our ABC reporter is not alone.  The Medical Council of NSW talks about ‘a wieldy, burdensome system producing inconsistent records and immense duplication’.  A UNE student welcomes change, in particular being ‘super glad that I am no longer getting blisters on my ears from a wieldy telephone receiver!’

It would be good to nip this one in the bud.  Unfortunately, as we all know, errors like these, once started, tend to drift through the whole community.