>Etymology studies the true meaning of words, and their real value, (01)
No, really, it studies the history of their meanings. But the point
is that this history may well not be what they mean now. It is just a
fact that word meanings evolve, sometimes quite rapidly. (02)
The value of a word lies in its utility in affording communication
between language users, nothing more. The history is largely
irrelevant to this. In any case, many useful words have no
significant history ('laser', 'blog', 'Web') (03)
Pat Hayes
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