[uhhyeahdude]

I suppose you could look at it that way. I certainly did, and it has taken me a very (stupid) long time come to a slightly different understanding. Not saying it is better necessarily. I just find it closer to true more of the time in my life.

Misusing words may or may not be stupid—without more information, including some nebulous stuff about intent and interpretation, I have no way of saying for sure in a given encounter.

What I would say instead is that many people seem to see “misuses words because [cocky/pretentious/know-it-all/careless]” as a heuristic for stupid. It isn’t a great heuristic, but knowing that people use it to rank you and choosing speech accordingly…isn’t stupid.

[HHest]

I think this is also a mechanism for languages to evolve: for whatever reason people start using a word differently from the dictionary definition. After a while if it has enough support the new usage gets added in. Sometimes the new way can be so entrenched that the old definition becomes archaic.