In the remark under the equally biting, as well as amazing title " Experimental language "(Izvestia. 2001. Dec 17) claims that the "philological authorities" are still making some innovations in order to "deflect accusations of complete inactivity": "a few years ago, the word voluminous was banished from normative usage... Another victim of philological initiative was the word comfortable. God forbid we should use it instead of the comfortable one that is now due..." Let us turn to normative dictionaries, i.e. dictionaries that reflect objectively the norm of word usage existing in the literary language (including the very fact of the word's presence in the literary language) with varying degrees of reliability (adequacy). I mentioned the degree of adequacy because sometimes an objectively existing language norm can be presented differently in different dictionaries. For example, the stress norm (accent norm) for the words yogurt and ketchup in the Orthoepic Dictionary of the Russian language is presented in contrast to other dictionaries with an accent on the last syllable. More than sixty years ago, in the Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language under the editorship of D. N. Ushakov, comfortable and comfortable were recognized as synonyms. At the same time, the first word was characterized as colloquial, and the second - as obsolete. Half a century has passed, and the four-volume Dictionary of the Russian language recognizes them as paronyms (i.e. words of the same part of speech and the same root, but with different meanings). However, these are incomplete paronyms: they have the same meaning - "comfortable, cozy, with comfort". For comfortable, the dictionary also notes another meaning: "one that has a positive effect on well-being, gives a pleasant feeling, etc.". We will say: comfortable circumstances, not comfortable (for more information about these words and their meanings, see: Russian Speech. 1999. N 4. P. 60). Another 16 years have passed, and the ... Read more