In a written paper, my teacher pointed out a mistake I made, which was using
… problems which flourish ..
Apparently problems can’t flourish , I forgot to ask why but I’m assuming because flourish has a positive connotation.
So my question is: What is the pejorative counterpart to the word flourish (which would be appropriate for my example of course)?
Answer
Personally, I don’t think using ‘problems that flourish’ is actually bad here. I would actually use it in non-work writing. But she is correct that it is a positive word.
Maybe you can use ‘proliferate’: which means to increase quickly and is more negative.
If you can include more of the sentence I can tell you if that would fit well..
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Practice4CPE , Answer Author : Meeka
