To be honest, I like the word hacker as it stands in its nebulous state now. It serves as a reverse shibboleth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth https:/

To be honest, I like the word hacker as it stands in its nebulous state now. It serves as a reverse shibboleth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth) for geeks. Signalling to those who understand it, that they are part of an "in group". That is a useful social tool. For those that don't understand, it doesn't confuse them that much, the difference between the two competing definitions is subtle enough at an introductory level as to not sound awkward. I find that people will never really be confused if you used RMS's definition, so long as they know that competing definition exists, even if they don't agree with that definition!