As everyone knows, words constantly take on new meanings. Since these do not necessarily, nor even usually, take the place of the old ones, we should picture this process as the analogy of a tree throwing out new branches which themselves throw out subordinate branches. The new branches sometimes overshadow and kill the old one but by no means always. We shall again and again find the earliest senses of a word flourishing for centuries despite a vast overgrowth of later senses which might be expected to kill them.
When a word has several meanings historical circumstances often, make one of them dominant during a particular period. Thus "station" is now more likely to mean a railway station than anything else; "speculation" more likely to bear its financial sense than any other. Until this century "plane" had as its dominant meaning "a flat surface" or "a carpenter’s tool to make a surface smooth", but the meaning &qu
A. we can do nothing about it unless we get into print
B. we should take responsibility to the language if necessary
C. our conversation has little effect on the situation because we haven't got into print
D. a great mass of people will accept what the press prints so that we can encourage the good and resist the bad
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