Thread: Epic overuse/misuse of words

Well, that's how language works, isn't it? Words change their usage and meaning over time. Think of "knight". Have you ever wondered why there is a silent k, or a gh in there? Have a look at Knight - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. There is more, of course, such as the great vowel shift that transformed the [iː] to an [aɪ] and so on. As long as you understand the message the speaker sent, the language "works". Whether the rules you learned in school still apply is a different story altogether, as is semantics. Gay acrylic scales, anyone?

What really annoys me are grammatical errors that can ambiguise entire sentences, like "they're/their/there" or "its/it's".