Word Errors Revisited

I got an email from a friend and mental sparring partner objecting to my quibbling over fine distinctions between words. His argument is, language must evolve, and evolution implies change. (Implies, not infers.)

He cited Webster's 9th Collegiate dictionary.

There was a lot of controversy when Webster's 9th came out. Traditionalists thought it too permissive. I am one of those. I regard Webster's 9th not as a dictionary but as a door stop.

I have Webster's 7th and four or five others, but my favorite is Oxford American Dictionary published in 1980. It not only preserves distinctions between such pairs as flaunt/flout, imply/infer, and persuade/convince, it gives examples of correct usage and warns of pitfalls.

Oxford's entry: flaunt (flawnt) v. 1. to display proudly or ostentatiously. 2. (of a flag, etc.) to wave proudly >Do not confuse flaunt with flout. We flaunt our ignorance if we flout established grammatical principles.

Evolution of language is inevitable and good. Allowing language to lose precision is bad.

As in biological evolution, variations from the norm survive if they confer some advantage over the norm. If variations are not advantageous, they die.

Those of us old fogies who resist change do the language a service. We tend to defeat bad changes while good changes overpower the establishment and improve the language.