"Floyd Davidson" wrote in message
...
"Nostrobino" wrote:
"Floyd Davidson" wrote:
"Nostrobino" wrote:

I've been saying the misusage is ignorant. It is. I haven't said that
the
people misusing the term are ignorant. On the contrary, I presume that
most
of them are folks of at least ordinary intelligence who have innocently
picked the misusage up from Usenet and elsewhere. To be ignorant of some
particular state of affairs before one has the facts is hardly a
shameful
thing. To try to DEFEND that ignorance after being apprised of the
facts,
however, is stupid. Please note that I am making a careful distinction
between ignorance and stupidity. The former is often only temporary; the
latter tends to be lasting.

Your entire diatribe about language and word usage is then,
according to the above, *stupid*.

Language *is* dynamic.

Again, that is the eternal argument of the semi-literate and those whose
grasp of language is feeble. Every error is followed by the excuse,
"language is dynamic." Since these people cannot be made to understand
their
mistakes, they never improve.

Hogwash. You are suggesting we should all be speaking Chaucer's
English.

No. We speak Modern English. Chaucer wrote, and presumably spoke, Middle
English. Even Modern English has changed since Shakespeare's time, but
that's over a period of 400 years. Evolution of language is inevitable and
natural up to a point, but it's not evolution when a perfectly sensible
technical term is, through misunderstanding and/or ignorance, redefined in a
nonsensical manner. Evolution implies improvement, not deterioration.

N.