Where Did The Phrase The Matter With Things Originate?

I like to parse this one almost like a linguistics puzzle: 'matter' has two relevant semantic tracks — one is the tangible 'substance' meaning (think material, matter-of-fact), and the other is the abstract 'problem' meaning. That duality enables a phrase like 'the matter with things' to carry a layered tone: it can mean 'what is wrong with ordinary objects and circumstances' or hint at a deeper philosophical worry about existence itself.

Historically, English shifted the sense of 'matter' toward 'issue' or 'problem' sometime in the late medieval to early modern period, which is why constructions like 'what's the matter?' are so old. Later writers and critics who liked to sound a bit theatrical adopted variations such as 'the matter with things' in essays, cultural commentary, or book and article titles. There's a nice interplay between everyday speech and heavier reflection here — it lets someone move from casual gripe to existential rumination without changing register. I often imagine someone using it mid-lecture or in a late-night blog post, and it always gives me that warm, slightly rueful smile.

My take is that there's no one dramatic origin story for 'the matter with things' — it's the sort of phrase that evolves out of common speech. People have used 'what's the matter with X' for centuries to mean 'what's wrong with X,' and swapping in 'the matter with things' is just a natural flip that emphasizes a general malaise rather than a single problem.

If you skim older literature and newspapers you'll spot lots of similar phrasings: 'the trouble with...' or 'the problem with...,' and eventually writers started using 'the matter with things' to talk broadly about life, society, or material objects. It shows up in essays and titles because it's punchy and a bit poetic — the kind of line a columnist or lyricist loves. I find it comforting in a weird way, like language giving you a ready-made lens to examine the messy parts of life.

I like to think of 'the matter with things' as a phrase that grew out of ordinary English rather than being invented by a single person. The grammar follows an old, everyday pattern: people have said 'what's the matter with him?' or 'what's the matter with this machine?' for centuries. The historical root of 'matter' goes back to Latin materia and passed through Old French into Middle English, collecting meanings like 'substance,' 'subject,' and 'problem' along the way.

What makes 'the matter with things' stand out is the shift from a specific object (a person or tool) to 'things' in general, which gives it a philosophical or literary edge. Modern writers and thinkers — most visibly Iain McGilchrist with his book 'The Matter With Things' — have used that edge to ask whether there is something fundamentally awry in how we see and structure the world. But it's also easy to find it used more casually in essays or critiques to mean simply 'what's wrong with this situation.' For me, the phrase always feels like an invitation: sometimes petty, sometimes profound, and often both at once.

To my ears, 'the matter with things' reads like a line from a late-night playlist or a rainy-day op-ed: simple, moody, and useful. It doesn’t have a neat single origin; it’s the offspring of a very old phrase pattern — 'what's the matter with...' — plus the flexible noun 'matter.'

Because of that, you’ll see it popping up all over the place in the 19th and 20th centuries onward: in editorials, in essays that gripe about modern life, sometimes in song lyrics, and occasionally in philosophical discussion when writers want to sound both colloquial and weighty. For me it’s one of those phrases that instantly sets a tone — conversational but reflective — and I kind of love how versatile and slightly theatrical it is.

I get obsessed with small turns of phrase, and 'the matter with things' is one of those slippery little lines that feels both modern and oddly old-fashioned.

Linguistically, it really looks like a composition of two older pieces: the idiom 'what's the matter with...' (a way to ask what's wrong) and the noun 'matter' itself, which goes back to Latin materia and Old French before settling into Middle English. Over time 'matter' shifted from meaning 'substance' or 'subject' to also mean 'problem' or 'affair,' so a phrase like 'the matter with things' naturally crops up when writers want to talk about what’s wrong with the world or with particular objects or situations.

You won't find a single inventor of the phrase — it's more of a natural English construction that tons of writers, journalists, philosophers, and songwriters have used in different contexts. I like thinking of it as a handy, slightly melancholic formula people keep borrowing when they want to sound both conversational and a little philosophical. It always makes me pause and look around the room like something's waiting to be fixed.

I've chased down this phrase a few times because it sits at the crossroads of everyday speech and deep philosophy, and that makes it oddly satisfying to unpack. At its core, 'the matter with things' is just a variation on the idiom 'what's the matter with X' — a way of asking what's wrong or what is the case. The word 'matter' itself has a long history: it comes from Latin materia (originally meaning wood or substance), moved through Old French as matiere, and landed in Middle English with senses that ranged from physical substance to subject or concern. By the early modern period, English speakers were using 'matter' to mean both 'stuff' and 'trouble' — which is why 'what's the matter?' can mean either 'what's wrong?' or 'what's the issue?' depending on context.

But the exact phrasing 'the matter with things' carries a slightly different, more reflective flavor than a casual complaint. It reads like a title or a philosophical question: is there something fundamentally wrong with how things are? That poetic tilt is why it appears as the title of Iain McGilchrist's book 'The Matter With Things' (published in 2021), which helped bring the phrase into wider contemporary use. In McGilchrist's hands the phrase is loaded: he explores how our brains, cultural trends, and philosophical assumptions have shaped — and sometimes skewed — our experience of reality. Still, the idea behind it isn't new; philosophers have long debated the 'matter' of things in the Aristotelian sense (hyle, or matter, versus form), and writers have used similar turns of phrase in essays and critiques for centuries to question the state of the world.

So if you're asking for a single origin point, there isn't a neat one. The idiom 'what's the matter' is centuries old, while the more artful 'the matter with things' seems to be a modern rhetorical spin that draws on older philosophical talk about 'matter' and 'things.' In casual speech it might simply mean 'what's wrong with the situation,' while in philosophical or literary contexts it invites a deeper inquiry into what reality or society might be missing. Personally, I enjoy how the phrase can be both a doorway to a gripe session and a prompt for serious reflection — it's a little wrench and a little mirror all at once.