I'm hoping that I'm just missing something, but I have 5 unused Dragon Souls and about 3 shouts that are currently greyed-out, yet I cannot apply the souls to the shouts. When I try to use one of the greyed-out shouts it states that a dragon soul is needed... yet I have 5 just sitting there. Is this a game breaking bug for me or am I missing something?

There's an option in the bottom labeled "Unlock" or somesuch.

There is a button to unlock the shouts, you can't unlock them by just clicking on them by your mouse. For pc it is "R", not sure for xbox and playstation thought. It should tell you thought, if you look at the different options you have on the bottom of your screen/monitor.

Yep on the bottom says, unlock shout, it's the "r" key on PC I believe .

omg, if I missed that I'm going to fall on my own blade, deservedly so. I'll check it out in a bit. ty! [/facepalm]

It isn′t that obvious.. I had the same problem aswell

I found that if you've remapped the key for ready/sheathe weapon, then it's whatever key you've mapped that to (even though the screen legend still says R).

Same thing happened to me I was super butthurt haha

Use the "Unlock" button. Square on PS3, X on the Box

x for the xbox... took me a while to figure out. Dont see why a doesnt just unlock them.

Yeah, I thought so, too, but it is probably a preventative measure, so someone doesn't unlock something they didn't want to spend the soul on... dunno.