The thing that comes to mind here is the notion of a "controlled vocabulary" from library science. When you're building a hierarchical model of concepts (Librar

The thing that comes to mind here is the notion of a "controlled vocabulary" from library science. When you're building a hierarchical model of concepts (Library of Congress, or Dewey Decimal Classification) it helps to have a relatively small and consistent set of identifiers so that you can consistently refer to the same thing. I think of good English usage as being similar. When what you mean is X, use the word for X. So these sorts of lists of usage can be thought of as a mapping from concepts to words. English is dynamic, true, but you have to remember that when you talk about "English is what English speakers speak" I think you have to also consider, to avoid a grave disservice to history, that "English speakers" mean not only those walking around today, but all the vast collection of written words through the ages.