"trouble" = to complicate; problematize.

[Jonathan Lighter]

If all new locutions were buried upon debut, I wouldn't have to keep
brushing up my vocabulary.

So draw your own conclusions.

JL

On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 10:03 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "trouble" = to complicate; problematize.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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"
> >>
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"There You Go Again...Using Reason on the Planet of the Duck-Billed
Platypus"

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