Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
I not making a blanket objection to the idea of meaning shifting in a living language.
In cases of extending the meaning of "marriage" or, similarly extending "theft" to include infringing on certain IP rights, you can agree or disagree with the reasoning, but there WAS reasoning. Someone(s) who knew what those words meant or conveyed, saw a parallel, or a connotation they wanted to apply, and intentionally started to make that extension. Right or wrong is not the issue here.
That's totally different that using "literally" to mean figuratively or "irony" to mean coincidence. Those are cases of people just being clueless about the meanings of the words they used and other people clueless following them, and no one caring enough to get it straight.
The first kind of shift may only serve people on one side of an issue, but the second kind serves no one and hurts us all.
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So this is a shift that has been going on for, like, 100 years. How long does it need to continue, no matter how it started, for it to become a legitimate use? It seems to me that nowdays this use of "ironic" is pretty mainstream. I admit the word gets thrown around more than it should and that dilutes its usefulness - kind of like the overuse of "very" is very overdone (pun intended). The use of "ironic" to be an amusing coincidence (intentional or not) seems to be generally accepted by all except word snobs (and I don't consider you one of those, before you might ask).