"trouble" = to complicate; problematize.

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:43 AM -0400 10/26/09, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>Jon, did you come to praise this locution, or to bury it?  What came
>to my mind was "troubled waters", roiled.  And the OED has "trouble,
>v" sense 3:  "To put into a state of (mental) agitation or disquiet;
>to disturb, distress, grieve, perplex."  That seems quite plausible
>for your quotation.

I don't see how it does.  That quite standard sense requires an
object that's the experiencer of the trouble, hence a sentient being.
The "problematize" sense doesn't.  It's not the politics of
historical interpretation that is troubled/distressed/plagued here,
but those who are trying to figure it out.

LH

>Sense 5[a] is less to the point, but adds
>color:  "To distress with something disagreeable and unwelcome; to
>vex, annoy; to tease, plague, worry, pester, bother."
>
>Joel
>
>At 10/26/2009 12:15 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>Google Books' blurb - apparently from a review - of Robert N. Proctor's _The
>>Nazi War on Cancer_ (Princeton U.P., 2000):
>>
>>"His treatment of smoking and cancer will be a revelation. This book
>>troubles the politics and ethics of historical interpretation in the very
>>best ways."
>>
>>(Literally about Nazis vs. Cancer.  They didn't want Aryans to get it.)
>>
>>JL
>>
>>--
>>"There You Go Again...Using Reason on the Planet of the Duck-Billed
>>Platypus"
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org