> But surely there has to be some agreed meaning of words? Yes you're right, and the dictionary documents that agreed meaning, but some of those meanings will

> But surely there has to be some agreed meaning of words? Yes you're right, and the dictionary documents that agreed meaning, but some of those meanings will gradually change over time. It's not new, and it certainly isn't post-modern. You can easily find examples, here's a short list: https://ideas.ted.com/20-words-that-once-meant-something-very-different/ https://ideas.ted.com/20-words-that-once-meant-something-ver.... I think the first three here ("nice", "silly", "awful") are particularly noteworthy. > redefining of words based on errors and ignorance How else could they be redefined? Occasionally someone invents a word on purpose, but that's relatively rare, and none of the languages people actually speak were intentionally designed. For all of history, people just spoke to each other and sometimes they got a word wrong or said it a little weird. That's where all languages and almost all words came from. There's nothing wrong with feeling annoyed by a particular word or usage, we all feel that sometimes, I just think it's useful to recognize that basically every word was in that transition phase at some point in the past. https://www.etymonline.com/ https://www.etymonline.com/ is fun to explore this stuff, it is often surprising. More examples from this very comment: - We make a distinction between "inventing" and "discovering", but "invention" used to mean "discovery" - "phase" only referred to phases of the moon until the mid 19th century - "weird" used to be a lot cooler, and mean something like powerful, magical, fate-determining - "document" used to mean "to teach with authority" etc.