Technical Meanings Can Survive Colloquial Use

Words do not stay inside the boundaries specialists give them.

A technical term can enter ordinary language and expand.

People begin using it for related experiences, metaphors, improvements, trends, and dramatic changes.

The broader usage may become perfectly legitimate.

That does not erase the narrower technical use.

In work associated with Werner Erhard, transformation is used in a particular way to distinguish a discontinuous shift in the realm of possibility from ordinary improvement or change.

Everyday English uses transformation much more broadly.

Both facts can be true.

Confusion begins when one usage is treated as proof that the other is invalid.

A field is allowed to define terms for a specific purpose.

Ordinary language is also allowed to evolve.

Precision depends on knowing which conversation we are in.

Before arguing about what a word really means, ask which use is operating and what distinction that use is trying to preserve.

Semantic drift changes language.

It does not automatically dissolve every technical meaning.