NicholasW expounds: Semicolons are the bolts in the tracery of my prose; I feel I haven't been working if I don't have a few to give elegance to the thing which has nothing to do with this post but is such a beautiful line that I must convey my appreciation to its author.

I'm really responding to the begging the question question. There are many phrases which are misconstrued due to the changing of definitions of key words. A classic example is the exception proves the rule. Presumably we are expected to believe that the more exceptions we have the more the rule is proved. Prove at the time of the coining of that old cliché* had the meaning test. The rule could be proved and found wanting.

*Ha! I thought that would happen; Ænigma "corrected" cliché to [cliche].