"Ma'am, it's not a problem." -- Radio advertisement for IBM

"Ya Gotta Problem With That!?" -- Headline of article concerning New Yorkers, Smithsonian Magazine, May 2008

"Houston, we've had a problem." -- Mission Commander James Lovell, Apollo 13

"Noooo problemooooo!!" --Widely heard youthful catch phrase

Sometimes there is a problem, however.

"It's not a problem" is the usage like the waiter, when you ask for the bleu cheese on the side of your salad, instead of spread all over it. "No problem" is the standard reply as if to assuage any and all worries as to how it will be done. Am I the only one who fatalistically says to himself, "He's only saying that; there's a 75 percent chance the bleu cheese gets everywhere"?

"No problem" in this sense is the food-service equivalent of the universal tension-alleviator among travel personnel: "Yer all set!"

When the car rental agent has generated, marked up, served for initials, re-gathered, and stapled your rental agreement, hands it to you with the keys and says "Yer all set!" you breathe a sigh, grab the sheaf, and move on to the next impediment.

Or at the airline desk "Yer all set" means, let's get to the next gauntlet-security, stat! "No problem" is the food-service way of saying "I'll get it your way to the extent the system is able; now I'm moving on to the next person."

"Ya got a problem with that?" is a little more in-your-face. In that usage it means an objection or a disagreement, or worse. It's a dare to stop someone from saying or doing something that is a suspected trespass or nuisance. The "p" in problem almost expectorates; the vowel "o" is really pronounced "awwww;" the "b" is hidden in front of a luxurious "l" and the "e" is hardly heard at all. It's used to shut people up, and it usually does.

Astronaut James Lovell used "problem" as one of the great understatements in all of the NASA space program. His indicators may have been telling him that he and his crew only had minutes or hours to live; he wasn't sure. His cool due to military flight training boiled out all the fear: The engineer in him took over and called the observations a "problem."

Anyone not familiar with the glorious drama that played out in the days which followed that particular use of "problem" should watch Ron Howard's gripping historical drama "Apollo 13." Little known fact: Lovell was actually repeating, or paraphrasing, what command module pilot Swigert had already said, "Houston, we've had a problem here."

Webster's defines "problem" as "a question proposed for a solution." In this respect, it's one of those interesting words whose meaning is only defined by its opposite, or cognate. Like "here" is defined as "not there." A problem is that which is solved. Neat word. It's related distantly to "parable," all the way from ancient Greek.

But the one I like best because it gives even a stone face a smile, is "Noooo problemooo!!" because of its youthful braggadocio.

It swashbuckles, it sweeps, it comforts by being big. But, rather sadly, I believe it's in decline as a youthful expression of assurance, being replaced by the overly breezy "No worries!"

Why do we see the word "problem" in so many different contexts? Why is it so popular?

Because identifying and solving problems is what we do in America. We're the service sector of the world now. Our software solutions are called, and sold as, solutions for the world's problems. IBM has a corporate self-description in which the word "solution" is the 70th word, and then it is used twice more before the end, almost as often as "strategy," and more times than "application." For a moment during the NASDAQ bubble, it seemed every software company had "solution" in their names.

America solves problems: look at the Panama Canal. Look at polio. Or kings. Or dirty water. Our very national identity is wound around problems, and their solutions.