> > Words mean what the majority of people in that country or region believe they mean. REGARDLESS of what it says in a dictionary which may have been printed twenty years ago, two years ago, or even yesterday. Anything else is etymology, not correct usage.
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> And yet... when the meaning of words or phrases switches to the point where they're simply silly to use, should we just accept that? The phrase "I could care less" to indicate that the speaker doesn't care simply doesn't make any sense. I don't care how many people use the phrase that way. If you use words to describe the opposite of what you mean, you're wrong.

Since that phrase is another of my pet hates, I have to agree with you on that one. The first time I saw it was online, and I thought it was a typo. When I found out it was a common phrase (possibly only in America, though, as I've never heard it from any other nationality) it really bothered me.

> What about words whose meaning has become sort of diluted to the point where the word is less useful? For instance, the word "atheist" is commonly used to describe somebody who is not religious. The word means somebody who is not a theist, i.e. does not believe in a god. It is quite possible to be religious without believing in a god, but I'd wager most people wouldn't describe Buddhists as being atheists.
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> When a very nice, specific word becomes diluted into a more general term, it bothers me. The word "dilemma" is a great word to describe a very specific situation. Its root means roughly choosing between two things, but its English meaning for some time carried the connotation of choosing between two things, both of which are bad. This is a great word. In its common usage, though, dilemma is taken to mean "problem." This is bad, since we already have a word for problem and are now left without a word that carries the same precision dilemma did. I will correct people (at least people with whom I'm on relatively friendly terms; I'm not going to correct somebody I've just met) who misuse these words, even if common usage says it's okay. Why? Because as a person who has a great need for saying things with precision, I have a vested interest in keeping the language as precise as possible.

One of the things I love about the English language is how there is almost always a word out there which means *exactly* what you want to say. With the amount of languages which have been rammed together over the centuries to form modern English, we have a colossal number of synonyms for the same concept, with their roots in different languages and with corresponding tiny differences in meaning.

So I agree with you about the need for precise language use, especially since language seems to be considerably tied to thought and intelligence. No, I don't mean "people who use big words are smart", I mean that it is not possible (or at least, it is EXTREMELY difficult) to think about a concept for which you do not know any words. Encouraging a good vocabulary, and the precise usage of it, encourages thought. Careless speech is careless thinking -- precise speech is precise thinking.

The difficulty is in finding the happy medium between growth and precision. Go too far in one direction and you have Internet English (a development in language which I personally think should be grounds for immediate capital punishment, but maybe that's just me). Go too far in the other direction, and you have, well, French. The French enforce language quality as if their immortal souls depended on it. A famous, and entirely true, story relates how some years ago there was a French homicide case in which the victim wrote the name of her killer and details of the crime in her own blood before expiring. Public outrage centred not on the killing, but on the fact that the victim USED AN INCORRECT GRAMMATICAL ENDING for one word.

It is, in fact, a dilemma.