Language, as I've often written, evolves over time. It's mostly a natural process, and dictionaries record those changes once they become significant enough. It happens a little more often now than it used to since Internet editions are much easier to update, but it still only happens after much deliberation and evidence of a shift in meaning.

I don't have a problem with the evolution of language. Recall that the meanings for "awesome" and "terrific," for example, are much-changed from their original meanings (awesome once meant terror, dread, or awe; terrific originally meant causing terror or frightening).

What I do have a problem with is trying to force a change of meaning for ideological purposes.

Make no mistake; parties across the spectrum are guilty of this. George Orwell, in his 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language," wrote, "Political language--and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists--is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

Spencer Klavan wrote in the Claremont Institute's American Mind in December 2019: "There is a reason why those who lust after power set about redefining, rather than simply eschewing, the words which properly belong to free........

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