I don't know man. I've spoken English my whole life and I've never heard of anyone being confused about referring to an idea as 'disingenuous' or similar. :) Ce

I don't know man. I've spoken English my whole life and I've never heard of anyone being confused about referring to an idea as 'disingenuous' or similar. :) Certainly no one (except you) has corrected me that it can only apply to people. Indeed, dictionary.com offers examples of "disingenuous" referring to ideas: > The move has no political chance in a Democratic House, but sends a clear, though disingenuous, message about punishing supposed “extremism.” > He would rather endorse someone with genuine doubts than someone with disingenuous beliefs. And there are many examples in which "disingenous" refers to things other than people. > The etmyology is interesting: ingenuous originally meant noble, which is also only something that would be said about a person I wouldn't be surprised at all if "(dis)ingenuous" originally referred only to people but came to take on a broader meaning. This happens all the time--words are fluid on even very short timespans. Consider the verb form of impact: > Sense of "strike forcefully against something" first recorded 1916. Figurative sense of "have a forceful effect on" is from 1935. In only 18 years the word acquired a figurative sense (and I strongly suspect linguistic velocity--the rate of change of language--has much increased in the Internet era--although not uniformly across the lexicon). Considering your Etymonline link dates "disingenuous" to the 1650s, it would be surprising if this figurative sense hadn't developed in the intervening ~370 years. Anyway, while I do enjoy discussing and learning about language, I have to get back to work. Thanks for the conversation, and enjoy your day! :)