What the fuck is this? This is not a rant. LOOK I’M ITCHING! so, opalcat, are you gonna murder me because I’ve incited your grammarian rage? RAWR!
Just out of curiosity, what does make a particular expression or meaning of a word “right”?
Well, if the dictionary started listing “borrow” as being an acceptable synonym for “lend” it would still be wrong, IMO. You don’t borrow someone some money.
Ah, it all balances out in the end. My SO is an Aussie and her parents have thick East African British accents. They pronounce words like “draw” as “drawer.”
So it’s okay cuauht, the universe is in a state of delicate balance.
I ax you, is that so bad?
When I, and the other grammar crumudgeons say it is, ignoramus! swings wildly in cuauhtemoc’s direction with cane
Okay, serious answer:
There aren’t any hard and fast rules about when a new use for a word becomes “standard” English. By “standard” I mean that the vast majority of the educated English-speaking population considers it “right.” (I say “educated” to indicate people who are well-read and schooled in grammar.) I don’t consider inclusion in the dictionary a good indicator that a word has become standard. Depending on what dictionary you look in, you’ll find, without caveat, “itching a mosquito bite,” “borrowing a friend some money,” and other usages which would be considred egregious errors by most educated English-speakers. A good dictionary will give you a usage note on a word that is not quite standard, so that if you care to, you can do some more research on it to find the traditional usage, the provenance of the new use (for example, is it something that stems back to the 17th century that people just think is new and sloppy?), and generally find out what people think about it.
The language changes over time, and after a while, a new usage will become so widespread that an educated, well-read person would have seen it many times in many respectable contexts. For example, “flaunt” is a similar-sounding word often mistakenly used in place of “flout.” The substitution extremely widespread. In fact, the phrase “flout the rules” gives 1150 Google hits while “flaunt the rules” gives 7,610! So the average person will see and hear “flaunt” used for “flout” so often that one cannot really be blamed for thinking that “flaunt” is proper usage. I suspect that it won’t be long before all the dictionaries drop their “usage notes” on “flaunt” and it will be standard to use it in place of flout. Personally, I grew up saying “flaunt the law,” until I was rudely corrected by someone, and now I say “flout.” I don’t consider it wrong to substitute “flaunt.” If I read or hear it, I notice it, but I don’t disapprove of it, per se. However, I know that there are others who do consider it wrong, and it’s no extra effort for me to get it “right” so that they have one fewer reason to think less of me or discount what I’m saying. More to the point, when I see “flout” used properly, I feel a bit of a warm glow, a sense of a kindred spirit, if you will, and I hope that other grammar crumudgeons feel the same way. As is often the case, if you do it the proper way, people who don’t know the “right” from the “wrong” probably won’t even notice, but people who know the “right” way will be pleased, or at least not displeased, so you’ve got nothing to lose by doing it “right.”
The use of “itch” for “scratch” and “borrow” for “lend” will either become so popular as to be standard, or fall out of use, but for the time being, most educated English-speakers consider them wrong. You can feel free to try to hasten the adoption of these new usages as standard by sprinkling them freely into your speech and writing, but be warned: This does not make you progressive. It does not make you a rebel. It does not make you a unique and beautiful snowflake. It makes you sound, to many people, like an ignoramus.
There are some “wrong” usages that I have adopted because they seem more logical or more pleasing to me. However, I fail to see how a pointless, random drift like the use of “itch” for “scratch” improves anything.