"it means to kill one in ten, as Meyer says. I do not agree with him that the prevalence of ignorance makes ignorance wisdom".
.,,.

I* do not agree that acceptance of the evolution of the meaning of a word to differ from its original meaning necessarily constitutes 'ignorance'. It is a familiar process with regard to much of our vocabulary. A nice point, one might think: by which I don't mean a pleasant one, but one with certain distinctions of meaning to be observed. I would suggest trying to trace the history of that word "nice", before inaccurately attributing opinions which they do not in fact hold to those who might just know better than oneself. I have mentioned before how much confidence I consider it would be appropriate to place in the linguistic & semantic opinions of Mr Bridge (or, as he would himself so courteously put it, "of Bridge".)

≈M≈


*[who am called Myer as it happens; it is generally regarded as a courtesy to get people's names correct; I always try to take care to do so myself]