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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Maxfli, post: 2779302, member: 69089&quot;]But what we&#039;re talking about is more a matter of linguistic usage than it is of education and knowledge, and the history of linguistic usage isn&#039;t on our side.</p><p><br /></p><p>On page 1, you said:</p><p><br /></p><p>That&#039;s right! People are using &quot;cleaned&quot; to mean &quot;improperly cleaned&quot; <i>most of the time.</i> </p><p><br /></p><p>You know the old saying &quot;possession is 9/10 of the law&quot;? Well, in language, <i>usage</i> is 9/10 of the law. If most people use a word or phrase to mean a certain thing, then eventually that becomes the de facto definition, despite the protests of a small minority of dissenters. </p><p><br /></p><p>Language usage is a powerful force. The owners of Kleenex, Band-Aid, Thermos and other genericized brand names couldn&#039;t put the genie back in the bottle, and I&#039;m not optimistic that the numismatic community will have any better luck reversing the misuse of &quot;cleaned.&quot;[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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