It would seem lately that for the same reason as "misinformed" or "untrue" has replaced "lied to" or "lie," or how "detention center" is the new word for "concentration camp" or "prison" or "jail," or even how "person of interest" is the new term for "suspect," I have no idea why so many people are increasingly using the term "issue" instead of "problem"? Perhaps I guess it means the anonymous corporate cubicle lizards get to talk about things going badly, without a negative word leaving their mouth or keyboard.
I have latelynoticed this particular instance of sanitized language twisting and it seems to be becoming more commonplace. If this continues, then I imagine the word "problem" will seem unusual and alarming, and the word "issue" will no longer be able to be used in its usual sense of not implying "good" or "bad," because it will be understood to mean that something is "wrong." No matter how you look at it, if you are having an "issue" with your car or computer -- it is more honestly a "problem" with and you can't get where you need to go and you can't get your intended work done.
While similar, in a sense, these linguistic dominoes have fallen in the past, I'm happy to see that the word "handicapped" is becoming again more commonplace after being dethroned by "disabled" has taken its place. The emphasis is "disabled" is on not having something, rather than being held back.
I understand that all sorts of words have fallen into disrepute due to politically correct pressures and people's desire to to whatever they can at the time to slip out of causing a fuss or sidestep being honest about what they are talking about. One can hardly say that someone "died" without it seeming a bit harsh or callous. Apparently "passed away" or now "passed" is thought to be less jarring. But then, this makes the ordinary use of "passed" difficult by the its own.
A saving grace is that all of these euphemisms enables the creation of pleasant sounding insults, such as "cognitively challenged" rather than "stupid".
Twice lately when I have addressed someone of African descent as an "African American" versus "black" and have been loudly redressed by those as "I'm not directly from Africa nor is my family." "My family has been in American for many generations and I am 'black.'"
Part of the problem is the pressures on people, particularly in the litigious workplace and in public discourse, not to cause offense and walking on linguistic eggshells is more appropriate. Therefore, they tone everything down. Instead of the manager telling someone they did a bad job of some task, they tend to come up with a string of weasel words such as "You know, you 'could' have done a little better..."
Perhaps it is the culture of political correctness and the overabundance of lawyers -- or should I say "legal professionals" -- that is changing language so right when you come down to it one ends up uttering a bunch of words that really don't mean anything.
