As our language continues to "evolve"...

[avevale_intelligencer]

I notice that the phrase "to home in," common when I was a youngster, is now being misreplaced with increasing frequency by the meaningless phrase "to hone in," presumably from some idea about locating a place or a person being akin to sharpening. I expect that, as with most of these changes, nobody has any idea that it hasn't always been like that, and certainly nobody cares.

I look forward with a certain glum fascination to the first reference to "honing pigeons."

Comments

Re: I don't like these either, but...

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Thanks. This is cool.

I will point out the evolution as improvement to a "higher" state meme was very common a hundred years ago, but is pretty much shaken out of biology now.