Go back and read Crane Driver's post WAY back up there. He said it just fine. I have had many sad experiences spending money on something and finding stuff I was not expecting...or wanting...hiding behind a slippery new usage.



Words are important....but there must be some basic agreement among users as to what the referents are. The old Alice in Wonderland exchange between Alice & Humpty Dumpty needs to be quoted more often:

" 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a
    scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean --
    neither more nor less.'

    'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make
    words mean so many different things.'

    'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to
    be master -- that's all.'"

Ron Olesko suggests that meanings gradually change...and so they do - but the older meaning meant something, and just because 'some' people (51%?? how do we count?) don't care to follow that older usage, it doesn't follow that the older one is now 'meaningless' or obsolete!

If 'folk' or 'trad' meant a narrow set of referents originally, and now some consider the words 'convienient' to mean a much broader set.....what, I ask for the 27th time, are we to call that older set when we WISH to refer to the narrower meaning?

Why should the careless and lazy folks determine that THEIR broad usage is all anyone needs?