Pursuit Nontrivial

Landreman replies: The use of “easy” and its synonyms described by Rio Beckwith is indeed a standard one. We utter these words to convey that a calculation is not analytically impossible, that it does not require the years of monastic toil required to prove the Last Theorem of Fermat, or that the solution is immediately comprehended by the speaker—who, unlike his audience, has regularly thought about the topic for the past 10 years. But the English language provides other words that more aptly express what we mean: “possible,” “feasible,” “soluble,” “practicable.” There is nothing inherently wrong with an instructor’s hinting that a student’s derivation involving 17-term expressions and elliptic integrals is probably going awry. However, you can be a much more effective communicator and educator by stating these suggestions directly—for example, “The question can be answered without integration”—rather than falling into the bad habit of using emotionally laden words like “simple,” “obvious,” or “trivial.” These adjectives unnecessarily impugn your students’ competence and make them feel defensive.