"Brittle" refers to something that is hard but easily broken, cracked, or shattered. It can describe physical objects like ...

Irrespective of Councillor Brian Coleman's bigotry against all travellers, his rash promise that there would never be a permanent travellers' site in Barnet was broken before the words ever left ...

I realized that we value words because of their insufficiency, extrapolating from language what we want to believe. A byproduct of their insufficiency, words are uniquely personal reflections of hope.