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'Houston, We Have An Issue:' Readers write in agreement that the word 'issue' is often misused when 'problem' is the intended meaning
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Published: May 10, 2009
Updated: 05/09/2009 08:05 pm
In last week's column I expressed my distaste for the word issue when used to mean a problem. Dick Dalton of Fancy Gap, Va., has responded:
"I've been meaning for months to write you about how many educated English speakers, including journalists, currently substitute issues for problems. I heartily agree with your attitude, to which I too am sticking.
"What I find discouraging, especially with younger folks -- say 40 and under -- is that many transgressors don't seem to recognize that issues and problems have usefully different meanings.
"One way I try to make the distinction, a technique that seems to annoy as much as illuminate, is to note that abortion and capital punishment are issues, topics people can discuss and about which they can justifiably differ.
"On the other hand, if your unmarried 13-year-old is pregnant and you're facing execution tomorrow at sunrise, I dare say you have a problem. Of course, the solution to either may be at issue."
A Winston-Salem reader wrote: "I hate that issue crap as much as you do. I guess issue makes the user think that he sounds more intelligent and sophisticated than plain old problem. Egad, as my old man used to say."
Two weeks ago I wrote about mondegreens, misheard phrases or lyrics that can produce startling and sometimes amusing results. An example: "Killed in a bar when he was only three," from the line in the song "Davy Crocket" that goes, "Killed him a b'ar when he was only three."
Henry Church of Winston-Salem has written: "Here's one for your ‘misheard and misquoted phrases and lyrics' file.
"Sebastian Barry's novel A Long, Long Way follows the experiences of a young Irish volunteer in World War I. The protagonist, Willy, has a fine singing voice, and on several occasions his sergeant asks him to sing ‘Half of Mary.' I wondered, ‘What the heck is ‘Half of Mary?''"
"Willie declines each request until one evening the soldiers are relaxing in a makeshift recreation hall following a brutal tour at the front lines. Willie's sergeant again asks him to sing ‘Half of Mary,' and because the troops have undergone such terrible hardships, Willy finally relents and performs ‘Ave Maria.'"
Don Gordon of Clemmons sent in a well-known example, probably made up, that I printed in a column some time ago. He wrote:
"Can you stand another mondegreen? It seems that a little girl came home from Sunday School and told her mother they had sung a song about ‘a cross-eyed bear named Gladly.' She referred, of course, to the old hymn ‘Gladly the Cross I'd Bear.'"
On another subject, Gordon wrote: "I noticed in the sports section of the Journal on April 23 a classic case of a common error, the dangling phrase. The AP story, in discussing a particular athlete, has this to say: ‘Coming out of high school in Daphne, Ala., a bunch of Southeastern Conference schools told White he couldn't play quarterback for them.'
"Taken literally, the sentence means that the schools, and not White, were products of the school. It's an example of very careless writing."
From Katherine Cagle of Winston-Salem: "I always read your columns and enjoy them very much. I have a question about the word catbird, as in, ‘She's a real catbird!' My elderly mother used that term to describe her 2-year-old great-granddaughter, and my daughter didn't know what it meant.
"I tried to explain and have asked several other Southerners their definition of the word. They all know what it meant but couldn't give a definition. The only definition I've found of the word is ‘the catbird seat.' That has a totally different meaning. Could you help us out?"
This is not a matter of defining the word catbird but determining the meaning of the two phrases. To be in the catbird seat is to be in an advantageous situation or condition. That meaning comes from the notion that a catbird will find very high places to sing its song.
The catbird, like the related mockingbird, has a wide range of sounds, which it likes to show off. Because of that, it is something of a character among birds. To say that the 2-year-old was a real catbird was to say that she was a character, a show-off whose antics drew attention.
■ Richard Creed is a retired Journal editor. He can be reached at richcreed@triad.rr.com.
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