"Robin" wrote in message
...
But I also think you have a perfect right to lobby for a body similar to
the Académie Française with whatever statutory backing you think fit. Eg.
fines for misusing "screw" and "bolt"

Or "plug", "socket" and (the ultimate abomination) "plug socket" ;-)

Language evolves. France has solved the problem with the Académie Française
which tries to fossilise the language and which wants people to use a French
word rather than one borrowed from English if possible (eg "ordinateur"
versus "computer" or "PC"; "mégaoctet" rather than "megabyte" etc). At least
they allow "le weekend" rather than "le fin de la semaine" ;-) German is a
bit easier in that you just string nouns together to create a new meaning,
without all the "of the" superfluity.

We solve the problem by (for most of the population) just not caring -
giving words new meanings that they didn't have before. Trying telling
people that "cheap at half the price" and "I could care less" don't make
logical sense and that it should be "cheap at twice the price" and "I
couldn't care less".

Hopefully "inflammable" will be expunged from the English language one day
(prefer "flammable" and its opposite "NON-flammable") because too many
people thought the "in" meant "not" and therefore interpreted "inflammable"
as "non-flammable". That's where a little knowledge really can be dangerous!