Words have specific meanings. Words change. These are both true.

If people start using a word in a way that doesn’t match its established meanings, how should you react? You can say it’s wrong, but eventually it could become so well-established that fighting it is senseless. Sometimes people need a word for a new concept and appropriate an existing one because it’s a good analogy. When vehicles pushed through the air by motors were developed, they needed a name, and people called them “airships” even though they aren’t ships in the usual sense. Before the end of the 19th century, “spaceship” was coined by a similar process.

At the other end, words sometimes get new meanings for stupid or dishonest reasons. For instance, people of certain political persuasions call anyone they disagree with a “fascist,” without reference to the word’s actual, historical meaning. That’s just a smear tactic, and anyone who values precise communication should reject it. “Grooming” is another example of a word that should have a definite meaning but has turned into an undefined smear.

As with biological evolution, there are favorable and unfavorable mutations in languages, and most of them are unfavorable. The fittest survive. However, people decide which ones are “fit,” and we all have to make our own judgments. When is it important to reject a new usage for a word, and when should we accept it without a fight?

The criterion should be value in communication. If a new way of using words helps us to communicate more effectively, it’s generally good. If it creates confusion or imprecision, it’s bad.

If the new meaning is clear and doesn’t get in the way of the old meaning, there’s normally no problem. The word “tablet” for a portable, flat computer doesn’t create confusion with pills or engraved flat stones. “Social distancing,” once used mainly to mean snubbing, has taken on a new and understandable meaning since the emergence of COVID-19.

Other words have been hijacked to create confusion. “Algorithm” has had a definite meaning for centuries, but somebody decided to repurpose it to mean something like “using software to control what information people receive.” The result is brainless claims that software should be written without algorithms, which would mean throwing it together with no thought for design coherence or accuracy of results. That’s a usage that’s worth fighting.

The watering down of words is worth opposing. The English language became a little poorer when “awesome” joined many other diluted words to mean something like “really nice.” It’s too late to do anything about it now, but I still won’t use the word that way myself.

Words sometimes move from narrow to broad meanings or broad ones to specific ones. The broadening of a word can promote imprecision; for instance, some people use the word “song” to mean any piece of music, regardless of whether it is sung or not. There are plenty of other words for the broader categories, such as “piece,” “work,” and “composition,” but what do you call a sung work not divided into components if “song” loses that meaning?

You might not agree with my examples, but if you disagree, it’s probably because you have a different opinion on how they affect communication. My point is just this: When words change, they may improve the language as a communication tool or make it sloppier. Let’s try to keep the changes that do some good and avoid the others.