My first unpleasant encounter with the current meaning of the word "problematic" occurred a couple of years ago. But ever since, I've wondered how the word "problematic," so vague, had become such an effective insult and shorthand for someone's (well, my) moral failure or insensitivity. I plugged the word "problematic" into the Google Ngram Viewer, a website that shows patterns of word usage in English-language literature, and discovered that its use has soared in the last few decades and shows no signs of slowing. In a 2021 Atlantic essay, Oxford political theory professor Teresa M. Bejan offered a possible answer: "Academics like me love to describe things as 'problematic.' With satisfaction, I've noticed that at least the beginning of a backlash has been brewing against "problematic" and its snotty little cousin "deeply problematic."

Source: Los Angeles Times September 06, 2023 19:37 UTC