Quickie musing:
I woke up this morning, as per usual, to the news on my radio alarm. The item was all about a political "challenge" that needed to be faced, and so my first thought for today was No, that's NOT a "challenge", that's actually a bone fide problem.
The interchangeability of these two words is getting very messy. It's all well and good for the cross-over generation that can keep the two concepts separate in their minds and appreciate the rah-rah psychology of turning adversity into character-enhancing terminology that makes individuals heroes simply because they successfully tackle a spot of bother, but what about following generations who grow up internalising this jargon, and the concept of semantically evading difficulties? What if the reverse also happens and the word "challenge" becomes a negative word, a synonym for bad stuff that's best avoided? I'm not saying this will happen, but when you start fiddling around with the meaning of perfectly good words, there are bound to be (jargon alert) flow-on effects.
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