"trouble" = to complicate; problematize.

[Jonathan Lighter]

Because prescriptivists are curmudgeons.  Everyone knows that.

Besides, I'm only a precriptivist when something bugs me, as happens more
and more the older I get.  Otherwise, let the good times roll!

JL

On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 1:35 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> 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 11:32 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >If the novel semantic nuance of "trouble" goes no further than this one
> >writer (please, please!), so be it. Lexicographers can ignore it.
>
> I receive a distinct difference between "trouble" here and "from" in
> the Beowulf review of Jon's other recent example -- I understand
> "trouble" as a slightly extended sense of the perhaps more usual.  I
> can't understand the review "from Beowulf" as making sense.  The
> former is not wrong to me; the latter is.
>
> >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.
>
> Gee, Jon, I didn't realize you were a prescriptivist!  We're in the
> same camp -- why are we arguing?  :-)
>
> Joel
>
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