Yep. Complaining about the natural evolution of language is a sign that you're being a crank. But at least language cranks are good for a laugh, because in the

Yep. Complaining about the natural evolution of language is a sign that you're being a crank. But at least language cranks are good for a laugh, because in the throes of rationalization they invariably make up these hilariously broken rules. Today's rule seems to be that "unique things should be capitalized in English usage", which is certainly how the World should be. Why, my Mother would cringe if she saw such terrible usage. Or maybe I'm misstating the rule: It's "if your word was once part of a proper noun, its proper-nounishness should be preserved henceforth". Which means that whenever I accidentally drop my Sandwich, or a Hamburger, or even a Frankfurter on a pile of Xeroxes I should use a Kleenex to clean up the mess. And you have to really watch out for those backformations, lest you write Crap when you really mean to write crap. (Though it looks like "crapper" -- or should I say Crapper? -- might in fact be derived from a proper noun, if the following link is 100% correct... which, frankly, is not too likely.) http://www.theplumber.com/crapper.html http://www.theplumber.com/crapper.html