> This places pendants like me at a serious disadvantage; I can’t rely on a dictionary to help me win arguments about correct usage.
First, unless you are dangling from a piece of jewelry, “pedants”, not “pendants”.
Second, stop worrying about “correct” usage and worry about clear and effective communication. It’s a lot less useful and convincing to argue that a usage is wrong by some arbitrary standard than to argue, e.g., that it promotes confusion where an alternative expression would be more clear to the target audience. Not only is it a more useful approach, it also lets you get benefit from dictionaries again.
Yeah, that’s literally the worst. I hope you also only use “terrific” in the original meaning (terrifying) instead of this silly modern usage… (joking, of course)
First, unless you are dangling from a piece of jewelry, “pedants”, not “pendants”.
Second, stop worrying about “correct” usage and worry about clear and effective communication. It’s a lot less useful and convincing to argue that a usage is wrong by some arbitrary standard than to argue, e.g., that it promotes confusion where an alternative expression would be more clear to the target audience. Not only is it a more useful approach, it also lets you get benefit from dictionaries again.