RE: Why it is important to protect words from redefinition...

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Good luck with that.

English evolves organically and the meaning of many words has changed, and not just recently. This page for instance notes that audition, commodity, dinner, fine, minority, merry, naughty, nice and silly have very different meanings now than they used to. Another site adds artificial, awful, brave, cheater, fantastic, flirt, girl, guy, nervous, pretty, radical, and sad.

And English has nothing remotely like the Académie Française.



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Yes it evolves. It also can be intentionally manipulated. That doesn't mean we need to blindly acquiesce to it. Especially when it is "EVOLVED" to mean exactly the opposite of the previous meaning.

Can you not see how anyone that learned it after that would have an extreme challenge trying to understand any older documents and knowledge? Sure if they have the will they can learn the other meanings and eventually figure it out. We have to do that in many cases today. Yet I don't know of any historical etymology that has resulted in a word becoming the opposite of itself.

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Another example... COOL. It certainly can mean different things. I used to say cool means stupid at times in my youth because the people trying to be cool were often just being stupid. I do get what you are saying...

The question is do you understand what I am saying?

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Also... I don't need luck. I just refuse to acknowledge the hijacked meaning. If someone wants to call someone "Racist" who didn't do anything actually race related then I don't have to agree with them. I can also point out that it is wrong. Whether they listen or not. That is up to them. I can also make them seem rather ignorant in the process. I don't start out harsh.

Whether they think about it afterwards and start to think or whether their audience does makes no difference to me. I simply refuse to submit. I do not recognize their authority to change the meaning and expect others to go along with their change.

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Sorry about the multiple replies. Feel free to reply to all or none of them, consolidate your reply into one, or whatever.

It is also important this be considered when laws are passed based upon the meaning of those laws. If we blindly go along with this then laws that were designed to say target "terrorism", "treason", or "racism" can suddenly be applied to those that they do not fit as the law was intended. They can also then suddenly set those free that they were intended to address.

Are there innocuous words that are not used to oppress people, vilify people, etc. that change over time. Yes.

Yet I know your are intelligent enough that you know exactly what I was and am referring to.

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