Ya Got an Issue?

In the fall of 2000, when I was taking a yoga class, the teacher said something that made me sit up (when I wasn’t supposed to) and had me wondering. In regard to a yoga pose that involved a severe flexing of the knee, she admitted that she had “knee issues.” To the best of my knowledge, that was the first time I heard the term “issues” used in this way.

To my ears—and so to my understanding of the term—the use of “issues” as a substitute for “problems” is very nearly preposterous. In what way is the word “problem” pejorative? Do we need an anodyne way of expressing the idea of anxiety and pain as something other than . . . anxiety and pain?

Toward the end of the entry “issue” in the Oxford English Dictionary, there is this:

Draft additions June 2003

In pl. orig. and chiefly U.S. Emotional or psychological difficulties (freq. with modifying word); points of emotional conflict.

1982    N.Y. Times 8 Dec. c10/6   The more difficult aspect can come after alcohol is removed. Then it becomes how do you deal with the emotions and intimacy issues that were largely dealt with previously through alcohol?

1991    Longevity Jan. 70/1 At the root of anniversary syndrome are unresolved issues about the loved one stemming from the past.

1998    Community Care 20 Aug. 46/5 (advt.) Educational programme and 24-hour placement support for emotionally damaged children and young people. Reparative work with attachment issues.

In the American Heritage Dictionary, there is toward the end of the entry “issue” this:

5. Informal A personal problem or emotional disorder: The teacher discussed the child's issues with his parents.

In Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary, we find this at definition 6:

(2) : CONCERN, PROBLEM  *I have issues with his behavior*

Note that these are all marginal definitions in the most authoritative dictionaries we have. I would bet that most people who talk about “issues” think they are being bluntly sincere. So now just why has it become the vogue way of saying you have a problem to say you have an “issue”? I'd welcome comments. Do you have a problem with my saying that "issue" is being used as a strangely namby-pamby veil for what is really meant?

Every entry in this blog will end with an illustration, whether or not it's illustrative. Joseph Beuys didn't have problems with tossing whatever into his box of detritus (he definitely wouldn't have thought of it as an issue):