The Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online defines the word ‘vexatious’ as follows:

1a:causing or likely to cause vexation: distressing, afflictive <a vexatious child> <nothing is more vexatious than to find that one is wrong> b: lacking justification and intended to harass <the company’s vexatious refusal to pay a patently valid claim> <a vexatious suit at law>

2:lacking in peace or calm:full of disorder or stress:unquiet, disordered, troubled <a vexatious period in his life> <a very vexatious interview>

So much of what goes on these days is so highly vexatious that one wonders why this very useful word is not heard at all in the media nor in ordinary speech. Tant pis!

MICHAEL SHAPIRO