An Issue with “Issue”

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Grant. This is Tracy in Madison, Wisconsin.

I have an issue with the word issue.

Okay. Do tell.

We used to use issue to describe a matter that was open to debate, but now it seems to be used as a synonym for a problem. Whether I’m talking to a computer tech, a pharmacist, or an auto mechanic, they want to know about my issues instead of my problems. And I wonder if this is a recent phenomenon, if we’re using issue euphemistically to make our problems seem less problematic.

Aha. So, Tracy, you have an issue with it? You don’t like it?

Well, I realize I’m not going to change it, but it just seems that in the past five or ten years, everyone seems to be calling their problems issues. And I can’t imagine, I wonder if Apollo 13 had launched in 2010 instead of 1970, would the commander have said, Houston, we’ve had an issue?

That’s a good point. You know, if you look up the phrase issue with or have an issue with, it looks like it really took off in the 1980s. You’re not the only person who’s bothered by this at all. The American Heritage Dictionary’s usage panel addressed this issue a couple of times, and more recently they have come around to feeling like it’s more okay to use that. But in the past, it was regarded as a little bit weaselly, I guess, rather than saying problem or screw up or whatever.

Right. And do Britain have the same issue?

The same issue?

Yes.

I don’t know about that. Yeah, it’s throughout the English-speaking world and partly due to the American broadcast hegemony. But, yeah, it’s catching on everywhere. I don’t really have a problem with it, though. It doesn’t bother me. I agree that some people use it weasely, but I think you should be allowed to take the sting out of the presentation of a problem by carefully choosing your words.

If you’re talking about?

Whatever happens. I mean, if it’s a technical issue, yeah, sure. And actually, what’s really interesting to me that in the tech universe, many of the trouble ticket software programs actually use issue instead of problem. So you actually create a new issue or you create a new ticket about an issue.

Oh, that’s interesting. Because there are many things where the user sees it as a problem, but the tech support person doesn’t see it as a problem. Maybe it’s a known bug or it’s actually how it’s supposed to work or it’s something that’s actually currently being worked on and it just hasn’t been released yet. There’s a lot of different ways. And so issue actually takes some of the judgment out of it because both parties might not actually agree.

Oh, that’s a good point. And that kind of takes us back to the old kind of legal stuff where we’ve got issue being used in legal terms as issue of fact versus issue of law where you have.

Who decides.

Right. So you actually takes us back to the issue being a point of dispute. And there’s another thing to consider here too, Tracy, which is, and I know most of the people who use issue to mean problem don’t actually mean it this way, but it really is interesting to me that a lot of times we’re talking about a circumstance which came out of another situation. And if we go back to issue, thinking about it as a noun referring to something that comes out. It literally issues from, say, a pipe or a breach or a part of the body, for example. You’re talking about people being born as their children as your issue, for example. So something that’s a result. So it’s a result of a circumstance. So it’s really interesting. It fits nicely in there. I know that most people don’t mean it that way, but it’s really interesting. It does fit very nicely there.

Yeah, and it fits the etymology of the word.

Well, I’ll be able to think of it in those terms now rather than just being bothered by it. Thank you so much.

Okay.

All right. Take care now. Thanks for calling.

Bye-bye.

Bye, Tracy.

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