After some browsing through Answers.com, I stumbled upon “minimal”. I discovered that it doesn’t quite mean what I thought it meant.
Minimal and minimize come from the Latin adjective minimus, “least, smallest,” and people therefore use minimal to refer to the smallest possible amount, as in “The amplifier reduces distortion to the minimal level that can be obtained with present technologies.”
In recent years, however, people have begun to use minimal more loosely to refer to a small amount, as in “If you would just put in a minimal amount of time on your homework, I am sure your grades would improve. Language critics have objected to this usage, but it is fairly common.”
In an earlier survey, the Usage Panel was asked what minimal meant in the sentence Alcohol has a particularly unpleasant effect on me when I have a minimal amount of food in my stomach. Under the strict interpretation of minimal, this sentence should mean only “Alcohol has an unpleasant effect when I have eaten nothing.” […]
Aha, so I had fallen into the trap of common usage, the meaning that minimal meant merely a small amount; I didn’t know that it meant the smallest possible amount. Well, with that out of the way, perhaps I can put this newfound knowledge to work. I could say that I “make minimal use of tables for layout” or that I eat “a minimal amount of trans fat in my diet”. Whee! I think I like this “new word” already.
“Fallen into the trap of common usage.”
I don’t understand prescriptive linguistics. How does language change and evolve if it may only do so when sanctioned by linguists and grammar nuts?
Awful used to mean something other than terrible. Do you want to tell people to only use it to mean awe-inspiring? For a more modern example, how about peruse? Do you want people to only use it to mean to study with great care? I don’t know if I’ve ever heard it used to mean anything other than to glance through, so why doesn’t it just mean that.
I’m in the descriptive linguistics camp, personally.
Seems like the difference between actual vs. possible, or applied vs. theoretical.
Language is very fluid. It doesn’t seem fluid, but it definitely is. I’m just happy that people will listen to me, let alone understand me, or (gasp!) agree with me.