>>The only problem is that Carl has been six feet under for about five years now. I wonder how many others on the panel are vertically-challenged?<<

quite a few, actually -- this edition of the AHD was published in '96 and several of the panelists have "bought the farm" since then (they're all *ed on the list). By all means check out the other link; I found it very helpful in understanding what the usage panel is about.

We're skating around the edges here of how our language evolves; usages become sometimes broader, sometimes narrower; old words no longer suffice because of these shifts, so new ones are borrowed or coined; some perfectly good words fall into desuetude. Not to beat a dead horse, but it's how we arrived at 500,000 words! (OED estimate)

BTW, I *like* what's happened to decimate; the original sense isn't all that useful to me, other then as an etymological point of interest. On the other hand, I *hate* what's been done to chauvinist in the US!

"What's another word for Thesaurus?" -Steven Wright