I was surprised to find that an assertion I read on here some time back—that this sharp distinction is quite recent outside of a small slice of academia—was bas

I was surprised to find that an assertion I read on here some time back—that this sharp distinction is quite recent outside of a small slice of academia—was basically true, when I looked into it. When I was taught this in college in the mid '00s I assumed I'd just been ill-informed earlier and that those definitions went back decades, if not indefinitely, but in fact it had only just spread to the rest of the humanities, a few years before it was taught to me. I do think it's turned out to be useful and think it'd be fine if that caught on, but do remain uncertain exactly how "mainstream" one may regard this usage—so, how useful it is for communicating with a general audience—especially internationally. Pretty much everyone on e.g. Twitter understands (if not accepts) the distinction, sure, but I hesitate to guess what a broader poll might reveal.