Michael Gilleland points out a quite funny example of what happens when pedants try to impose historical usage on people who have been using a language quite nicely, thank you:
The same may be said of all the professions in which the ‘dead’ languages are not merely the toys of pedagogues but the constant tools of practical men. I suffer from lumbago; I grow geraniums; I go to the cinema. And when my doctor diagnoses loombahgo, my gardiner cultivates gerahniooms, or my cook enjoys herself at the kyneemah I shall begin to think that the pedagogues are making headway.
As for the political world, the numerous Latin words in current political usage are sufficiently mystifying to the man-in-the-tavern without our attempting to make him pronounce them as some good don believes they may have been pronounced by Cicero or Horace. Even the mocking business man is not ashamed to draw his dividends at so much per centum; but not all the pedants of Arabia will induce him to draw them pair kentoom.
Take heed, fellow law students. Take heed, fellow pedants.
Yours truly,
Mr. X
…a cautionary tale…
