"trouble" = to complicate; problematize.

[Joel S. Berson]

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.  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

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