Erosion of distinctions of meaning
Okay, I've pretty well given up on hoping that the difference between 'disinterested' and 'uninterested' will become anything but a historical curiosity that scholars will need to bear in mind when reading older texts.
My sermon today complaineth about the use of 'secret', when 'private' is really what is meant. I moaned about the silly use of 'secret' in the title of Can Any Mother Help Me? fifty years of friendship through a secret magazine.
Yesterday I was reading an article about an institution known to me which referred to the 'secret' tunnel connecting buildings on either side of a busy main road. Hello? this was not a secret, the existence of the tunnel was widely known well beyond the actual staff of the institution concerned. It was, however, a private tunnel, i.e. it was not used for public access, there were levels of security involved, visitors would be escorted, etc (but not, you know, blindfolded and spun around to disorientate them first). Because it was used for backstage staff admin purposes. It was no more secret than what goes on behind a door saying 'Staff Only Beyond This Point'.
If I were a certain kind of journo, I would bewail this as demonstrating that now everybody lets their dirty linen and everything else hang out in public, what with their blogs and their twittering and their realtime webcam feeds, everything is either public or a dark secret, that there is no 'private' any more. Which I think is a gross exaggeration to make on the basis of sloppy word usage.
Which is, nonetheless, irksome.