Originally Posted by
combatpigg
Do you think Websters has full time staff dedicated to keeping definitions up to date....?
I do.
Do you think they have ever needed to make changes or amendments to the definitions of existing words..?
I do.
There is no way they could have known about this issue when the definitions for drone were entered into the book.
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In one of these drone threads I used the example of the word , "Gay"
Gay , in the early 1900s meant happy , nothing more . In fact , I believe the 1890s were known as the "Gay Nineties" in the same way as the 1920s were known as the "Roaring Twenties" . Fast forward a hundred years and the public , with NO prompting and needing NO "permission" from Websters , has reassigned that word to mean something else entirely ! Yes sir , it is popular public usage that defines what any given word means and it is Websters responsibility to keep up to date on what the public has decided . This high and mighty attitude of some who quote Websters as being the end all be all of what words mean , as though it is THEY who assign words' meanings rather than try to play the always one step behind catch up with what the speaking public has decided they mean , would be funny if not so blatantly ignorant of the real fact that the dictonary doesn't decide what words mean , it merely catalogs what the public has decided each word means based on popular usage .
Show ANY member of the non RC public a quad and they will say ........... "Drone !"
Show them a F4U Corsair and they will say ......... "Toy Plane !"
Now , regardless of what the wordsmiths here have said , CP and I are right , the public has spoken , and now it's time for both the dictonary AND THE FAA , to get with the present day usage of the word drone !
Unless , of course , all you RCers , happily flying your toys , would rather be seen as gay instead of happy ?