> “Fail” is almost never the right word for what is happening. It’s so final, so negative, and it’s a dead end: What do you do after a failure? Mope? What abou

> “Fail” is almost never the right word for what is happening. It’s so final, so negative, and it’s a dead end: What do you do after a failure? Mope? What about it is final or a dead end? "Failure" just means that an attempt was made that did not have the desired outcome. That's not final, you can make another attempt (usually) > Words have meaning. They can explain what’s really going on, and suggest what should be done next. The word “fail” accomplishes neither. Words sure do have meaning and "fail" implicitly does both of those things: it means you should try something else, and what you tried didn't work. It requires additional work and analysis to understand why it didn't work and what to try next, but an attempt not achieving an outcome is a fact and reframing it with different words doesn't change that. The proposed alternative words don't even come close to having the same meaning, and most are in fact things that themselves can fail or succeed.