Just-so stories like Kipling’s could be the starting point of real science

[maxsims]

Doggerel?   Nay!

This "doggerel" can be understood by most people of Anglo-Saxon background who have completed secondary school, but it takes a fair bit of translation.

It's me insisting that I do not advocate a return to original spellings, and that it will be a long, long time (if ever) before I do.   

The uncontrolled evolution of English has already resulted in a plethora of Englishes (is that a neologism?), many of which are virtual foreign languages, especially when spoken.


To repeat, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"   Invent new words, sure; that is necessary.   Get rid of silly words like "noisome", yes, but don't give additional meanings to words ("problematic" springs to mind) and don't follow blindly when some "expert" decides on a grammar change; I strongly suspect that the clown who first decided that English had too many commas is responsible for the current which/that confusion.

(Hmmm...I think we're in the wrong thread!)

[Joe Carillo]

I must admit that I put the adjective "problematic" into service quite often. I find it very useful and handy in describing troublesome grammar or usage in the sense that Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary defines the word:

problematic
Variant:also  problematical   
Function: adjective
Date: 1609

1 a : posing a problem  : difficult to solve or decide  b : not definite or settled  : UNCERTAIN  <their future remains problematic>  c : open to question or debate  : QUESTIONABLE
2 : expressing or supporting a possibility
synonyms see DOUBTFUL
  –problematically  adverb

I therefore wonder why "problematic" is one of your pet hates, maxsims. At any rate, if your reasons for considering "problematic" problematic are indeed reasonable, I'll join your bandwagon without blinking and ban the word from my own vocabulary. 

[maxsims]

I first looked up "problematic" many a year ago in an Oxford.    It then gave the meaning as "open to question of debate" - nothing to do with "problem" per se (which put it into the "silly" category along with "noisome", in my view).

However, I must concede that the word has been saddled with the extra meanings you just enumerated, so we are stuck with them.   

When you use the word, I always take it to mean "questionable", rather than the entirely different "expressing or supporting a possibility".