Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2009

I take "of greater or lesser intensity" to mean "to some degree challenging,
arousing tension or anxiety". Whether we "all seek out or create" such
situations I don't know, but certainly I do. As an amateur musician I fairly
often undertake to teach a choir a complex work and then to conduct it in
public with only one afternoon's full rehearsal (with a largely amateur
orchestra). The challenge, tension and anxiety are tremendous for both me
and the performers, but that's what is so enjoyable and - when it works -
satisfying for all of us and for our audience. I think that may be an
example of what your author has in mind.

Alan Jones

"Problematical situations" indicates that there are problems.
"Greater or lesser intensity" has to do with how critical those
problems are.  

b) is the closest to describing this, but I would use "critical"
rather than "serious".  "Serious" seems to me to indicate a general
magnitude, but "critical" relates to the specific situation.

Caveat: I'm no native speaker of english.

Comment:

Yes/no.
Perhaps it helps to think of it as a quality/quantity distinction.
The quality distinction is "problem" versus "no problem".
The quantity distinction is
- a little serious (low intensity)
- quite serious (medium intensity)
- very serious (high intensity)

IOW, "intensity"  indicates a scale of seriousnes from not very serious to
seriously serious....

Very fine distinctions here.... On the one hand, you may have problems of
greater or lesser complexity = more or less problematic.

A complex, but uncritical problem may involve e.g. details of historical
costume, where only specialists may know the right answer, but exactly for
that reason it will not be critical - of high intensity - for the
performance as a whole, because the audience will be none the wiser if
Brunhilde appears in an Anglo-Saxon costume of 812 or a Germanic costume of
837. People will still see a big woman with a winged helmet singing
ferociously.

OTOH you may have situations which are more or less critical to the persons
involved in the problem, i.e. problems of "high intensity" because the
emotions etc. involved will run high. Then, even quite "uncomplex" problems
may become very intense.
Take a stage production - an extra cast person does not appear at the
required time.
This is a commonplace and not very complex problem, but it may be quite
critical to the performance of the play on stage.

This is actually rather like a).

And again: more

I would say "problematic situations of high seriousness" for "high
intensity".

HTH,

MVH,

T