Agreed, just because some words are catchy and appear intellectual does not mean they should be used everywhere; it is very misleading and sometimes unprofessional.
Whether it is ‘objectively’ so or not has little to do with professionalism, which kind of makes my point (which is that an important concept is falling into disrepair because the word for it is being misused). Anyway it seems I offended you, for which I apologise. My ire was roused by the usage, not the writer. I have no doubt I do worse often enough.
Because it's a short, extremely common, word in our field. Choosing to use it will cause confusion, and it's also rather insulting to those who wanted to use it but restrained themselves for the greater good.
On the other hand, calling out a popular usage and giving the reason that it's "wrong" (rather than something you dislike on purely arbitrary grounds), is almost always baseless intellectual snobbery.
It only seems absurd becaus you don't realize that it's only the exclusive right to use those words in a commercial context to describe a product or service in a specific field.
The way it's being used in public discourse is not necessarily the dictionary definition of the term. You have to meet people where they are when it comes to rhetoric, not try to force them to follow your version of what means what.
Words can have multiple meanings. And, some of those meanings can be based on ignorance, bias and sloppiness. It is fair to critique the use of words when they obscure actual meaning.
Nobody has a single authority on what words mean. That doesn't mean terms don't have established meanings, and it'll make things difficult for you if you insist on using them differently.
I think this sort of perspective is becoming a bit of a meme. Not every use of longer or uncommon words is for the sake of signalling intellect or w/e. This is just such a negative, juvenile perspective to take if you are deploying it often.
I think you are spot on about this. Different communities and regions have varying definitions for words, and there are probably thousands of such cases. Trying to dictate one "correct" usage for each is extremely arrogant and disrespectful.
Not to mention that meanings can evolve over time a great deal. If these types of corrections become common place I'm not sure what all of the ramifications will be but I suspect they will be bad on the whole.
I agree - this is how it is generally used, and usage determines the meaning of words. You cannot, in general, deduce the precise meaning of words from first principles or the dictionary definitions of related words.
'Opinionated' is a related word which does not mean exactly what it might seem from 'opinion'.
In academia, there is plenty of disagreement, mostly handled without being disagreeable.
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