"trouble" = to complicate; problematize.

[Jonathan Lighter]

Joel, Joel, Joel.

It is often possible to stretch, tweak, bend, spindle, or mutilate a
novel-sounding locution or collocation to fit an existing dictionary
definition. (Freshmen, disgruntled by marginal notes like "wrong word'" do
it all the time!)

The point is that the 'cution or 'cation itself really does sound novel to
somebody obsessed with such existential trivia.

Would *you* have employed "trouble" (for example) in that sentence?

Don't answer that question. The point is that I wouldn't and, as Larry says,
one can describe the circumstances of its use in an objective way that
differentiates it from what's already in dictionaries. The earlier
definition merely shows that the new twist didn't come from outer space
but mutated from something here already.

If the novel semantic nuance of "trouble" goes no further than this one
writer (please, please!), so be it. Lexicographers can ignore it.

However, as so often happens, twenty years from now millions may be using it
in just that way; so it seems wise, nay "proactive," to bring it to the
attention, now, of my fellow Justice League members.

JL

 )n Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 10:25 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "trouble" = to complicate; problematize.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 10/26/2009 10:03 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> >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.
>
> I see "the politics and ethics of historical interpretation" as being
> roiled,agitated, stirred up. in the same way that troubled waters are
> roiled.  The subject (the politics) stands for the people who interpret.
>
>
> >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
> >
> >------------------------------------------------------------
> >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
"There You Go Again...Using Reason on the Planet of the Duck-Billed
Platypus"

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