Word of the Day: embrangle

embrangle (v)

To involve in difficulty, conflict, disorder, or confusion.

"Then there was poor Jacob Dodson, the half-witted boy, who ambled about cheerfully, undertaking messages and little helpful odds and ends, for every one, which, however, poor Jacob managed always hopelessly to embrangle.... They nicknamed him Jacob Doodle-calf."
--Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown at Rugby, 1889

A long time ago, my ambition was to be a magazine editor, and a certain non-profit organization offered me a job editing their quarterly magazine. I accepted, but it soon became clear that I had embrangled myself in a no-win situation. The organization turned out to be intensely bureaucratic, to the point that I couldn't make a single decision without the approval of several people, some of whom were not much interested in cooperating. It was a classic "responsibility without authority" situation, and eventually I was forcibly, uh, disembrangled from that gig. Just as well. Print periodicals are an endangered species, and cajoling pencil-pushers into making decisions they're afraid to be held accountable for is not my forte.