Why shouldn't we reinvent the wheel again tome after time?
The wheel has a very definite shape. You can add some nice looks to it, but you can't actually reinvent it. Unless the knowledge is totally lost from society and we don't have wheels for awhile and then someone reinvents it.
Words. They are treated the way you are describing. It is proving to be a problem.
- We think in words.
- If someone changes those words they close off avenues of thought.
- If words change too much it inhibits communication because different people will try to communicate and it will be one person thinking ROUND while another person is thinking SQUARE. The communication will become more and more difficult.
Words should not change. It is easy enough to create new ones. If you redefine words and people forget the original meaning then when you go back to learn from texts, instructions, etc from the past your learning will be inhibited because when you see the word as it was written it will now mean something different. This leads to corruption of knowledge.
Another example:
Consider "Racism". It has a very specific meaning. It is often used these days when it doesn't describe what occurred at all.
There are laws and consequences involved with the accuracy of that word. If it can be redefined then you can suddenly target people that were not actually committing racism with crimes. This is happening today.
Consider Genders. This concept has existed throughout known recorded history. If people want to create new pronouns. So be it. I am not against that.
If they want to tell people Man and Woman now no longer apply. I resist that. It corrupts knowledge. It corrupts the future knowledge and removes some knowledge required to look into the past and learn from it.
If you want to be referred to as Zi, Zer, whatever. That is fine. Let me know rather than getting angry when I operate with the knowledge my mind has. I will likely TRY to use those terms. I will also likely make mistakes because speaking that way and stopping to constantly reassess pronouns is not something I naturally do. Yet it would not be due to any malice. Now if someone is rude about it and acts in outrage at that point any attempt on my part to make them comfortable will likely cease. I cannot live my life innately knowing everyone's preferences and tip toing around land mines to try to appease them. That is incredibly inefficient and a total waste of brain power. If they are civil and let me know I'd likely still try.
Honestly I've not had anyone call me out of mispronouning yet. I tend to avoid scenarios where that is likely to happen.
If I am being honest while I'd try to respect their wishes I'd also want very little to do with them after that if I had a choice. I think my mind has better things to be doing than trying to navigate through such things.
I am selfish that way and totally fine with that fact. :)
And yes there was a bit of a side track. I only wanted to give the example on racism and got a little carried away.