abstruse

very familiar word / dare I admit, however, that I’m suddenly unclear about the distinction between abstruse and obtuse? This is embarrassing…

Definition of abstruse:
“Difficult to understand… An ‘abstruse’ professor may be deep, profound, and hard to understand. Unfortunately, some of her students are ‘obtuse,’ or dull and slow-witted.” (answers.com).

Where I ran across it:
3/7/08 NYT article remembering William F. Buckley, “A Most Uncommon Man,” by Dick Cavett.

“…It is cocktail time below deck. My wife and Bill were fond of each other and enjoyed making each other laugh. ...In her omnivorous reading she had downed a heavy tome on Catholicism, and asked him to clarify some abstruse point about St. Paul and the founding of the church that seemed to her somehow self-contradictory. …”

My two cents:
It’s another penned monument to the (just) late Wm. F. Buckley, but a real standout. Why? Two words: Dick. Cavett. I’ve already proclaimed my fondness for Cavett’s writing, so I won’t bore you with any more schoolgirl sighing. But honestly folks, who else makes use of such an elegant vocabulary with such facility and grace? (No calls, please. We already have a winner.) Just go read it and enjoy.

And I love/hate him for making me realize that I have a problem differentiating between abstruse and obtuse. Abstruse=deep. Obtuse=dumb.

Right. I knew that. How obtuse of me.