Mea Culpa: ‘Problematic’, an indisputably problematic word

Questions of style and language in last week’s Independent, reviewed by John Rentoul

An 18th century cannon... or canon, as it was still spelt then (Getty/iStock)

We had this headline on an editorial about the former prime minister’s nomination of his father for a knighthood: “Boris Johnson’s final resignation honours list is indisputably problematic.” What we meant was that it is causing problems – in the first instance for Rishi Sunak, Johnson’s successor, who has to approve the nominations.

“Problematic” is on the Banned List because it is often used as a way of saying something is bad without saying why. We could have said the list was “indisputably tawdry”, or something like that. Tawdry is a good word, full of meaning, unlike the prim committee-speak of “problematic”. Tawdry: showy but cheap and of poor quality; a contraction of St Audrey’s lace, cheap finery sold at St Audrey’s fair in Ely.

Inconsiderate: We had a striking case of word order causing ambiguity in this news story: “Rishi Sunak’s proposals to deport asylum seekers who arrive on small boats without considering their claims are a ‘clear breach’ of international law, the UN Refugee Agency has said.” We solved it by deleting “who arrive on small boats”, which was unnecessary, and in any case was made clear later. The idea that asylum seekers might be penalised for failing to think through their claims sounds like something by Joseph Heller.