I believe Ive run into a bug,

I was wandering around Skyrim this morning and as I approached Mt Anthor i was attacked by a Dragon. When I kiiled it it didn't give me a dragon soul. As I got the word of power, for Ice, I tried to unlock it and got a message that it takes a dragon soul to unlock a word. Prior to killing that dragon I already had 11 Dragon Souls. Also earlier this morning when entering Windhelm I received a dragon soul, I don't know why. That one gave me 11.

Help!?

You will not get another soul from a Dragon you have killed before. This is usually the case when a Dragon is supose to ALWAYS occupy a specific location in the game. They can respawn and you can kill them again, but no soul. The only guess is that this was put in place to prevent SOUL camping (not sure why anyone would want to or need to do that). It is possible to recieve a Dragon Soul if you pass near a location where a Dragon was killed and you were not close enough to capture the sould when it died. Not sure of the details, but apparently the SOUL location is marked by the game seperatley from the body of the dragon (skeleton) itself. The skeleton can disapear (or "spawn" to a new location nearby), but the SOUL where it was originally killed will remain in place until the player moves close enough to capture it.

Wait, i just re-read your OP and it sounds like just an interface mistake. from the SHOUTS menu, highlight the shout that has the greyed out word and hit R to spend one of your shouts on the word. The game should ask you if you want to unlock the word and answer YES to do so. I recall that if you try to CLICK your mouse on the shout rather than use the R button on it, you get the message you mentioned (and it's confusing).

Hope that helps.

For reference, I have killed a respawned dragon at a specific location on the world map where there is a wall and I've received another soul. It happened only once did I not get a soul for a dragon but can't remember if it was a random one flying or encountered in a town or one in a specific pre-determined area.

Ya i have had it both ways. most of the time the dragons in a specific area, wont give me another.

I have had a couple spawn souls up on a second kill, but as i write this im thinking it was when i went back to one with delfine(sp)

Thanks BrotherGrimm for the lesson on dragon respawning and how I got a soul that I didn't think I had earned.

I feel so stupid for having used the mouse rather than the R key. I can't tell you how many times I've equipped items that I was trying to give to my companion, Lydia. I must have a psychological block about the R key.

I ran around earlier exploring/questing instead of finishing the Horn Quest and have killed about 10 or so dragons. I killed 4 after the first 2 Shouts and before I finished the Jurgen's Horn Quest. I have 4 Shouts that are grayed out and I've been FRUSTRATED for the past 4 days since I finished the Horn Quest!!!!!. When I open the Shouts menu and click one of the grayed out Shouts the game tells me I need a Dragon Soul. I have 11 I've killed! And I've killed one after every Shout I've learned! What have I done wrong, or is this a glitch? Hopefully your 'Highlight and R Button' technique works!!!! But reading the post above, it sounds like this might not work. Maybe I'm not understanding correctly. One more question... Since I have more Souls than I can use, are they now saved up for future words of Power or are they just saved up for Shouts? I think I'm beginning to understand that I'm totally not understanding how the Shouts work... LOL!

Thank You for your help, fellow Skyrim Fans! I'll try it when I get home to lunch.

I lied. One more question... does anyone have a cure for my Skyrim fix (besides destroying my computers)!!

Ok, tried it out. You were right, you move your mouse over the grayed out Shout, press 'R' and confirm spending a Dragon Soul. Thanks! I never finished Oblivion and never played the other games. I left it about 1/3 of the way in back in 2008, in the gladiator pit. So this is essentially my first real time spent on the series. I got frustrated with the ridiculous skills model and enemy leveling mode. But Skyrim is awesome!

If you turn off the Controller and Rumble in the Gameplay Settings, it does make the UI more responsive to the mouse. Also, the latest Beta Patch is supposed to fix some control issues, you might try that and see if the UI responds better.