Question: Recently, this forum has seen many questions of the *what is the single word for* type.

Is this really such a concern in English?

Single words such as obfuscate or elucidate can obfuscate as much they can elucidate.

This quest for a single word might be considered stylistically important in some languages but how important is it in English?

Answer: 
FWIW, I happen to have more rep on [single-word-requests](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/single-word-requests "show questions tagged 'single-word-requests'") than on any other tag, and am sitting at about 21'st on its all time users list. So I have a bit of experience with this particular type of question.

It seems to me that a very large percentage of the questions on [single-word-requests](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/single-word-requests "show questions tagged 'single-word-requests'") are from people who want to translate a very nuanced word from another language into English, and for some reason believe English ought to have an exactly equivalent word. For anybody who knows linguistics, this is clearly hookum.

However, its a fun challenge for those of us who like to stretch our vocabulary muscles. So we all play along and try to win the "game". This has the unfortunate side-effect that more correct multi-word answers get bypassed in favor of less correct single-word answers.

So if I had a complaint about our current handling of single-word requests, it would be that we **allow answers to be multi-word** if need be. Brevity ought to count for something, but try to moderate for meaning, rather that just unblinkingly rejecting multi-word answers.
The hunt for le mot juste is interesting if not entertaining, but the goal of linguistic economy stems from Classics, which is why using a word like +obfusomething (nod to @lucounu) is not part the regression to the mean vocabulary. Yes, a concise word for any given concept maybe be favorable and helpful, but we don't want to end up epigrammatic, either.

I understand your question as asking if this a result of having discarded so many words over time, or is it of greater concern to non-native English speakers because it is daunting to realize you are translating ideas and not words? It seems many posts seeking the magic one word are really more concerned with **translation** of a concept in one word vs. simply as concisely as possible finding an acceptable translation of an idea.

@SimonHoare, excellent point about register vs. conciseness. Veuillez agréer, Monsieur Hoare, de mes sentiments les plus sincères is high register but many words. 

At the same time, an infamous German word like [Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänskajütenfenster](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft) refers to the view of the Danube out of the window of the ship captain's cabin for a particular shipping company in Germany. @DWright, absolutely there are wonderful borrows from other languages like *Schadenfreude*, which was finally added to the OED (O Freunde! Nicht diese töner!) *Déjà vu* is a classic example.

Though we seek the magical one-word bullet to describe the *je ne sais quoi*, cases like this do not mandate one and only one word. Take the example of the German ship captain's cabin window. Is this concept ever going to come across as one word in English?

To answer your question, to determine if a concise adjectival or adverbial phrase is preferable to an \*obstetrifrugal word that a reader would have to look up, that preference would be based on style, i.e. APA.