->  DW> The word 
->  DW> "party" was purely a noun when I was a kid. Then people 
->  DW> started using it as a verb, and this is now accepted usage. 
->  DW> The same sort of thing seems to be happening to the word 
->  DW> "text", in the context of sending cellphone text messages. 
 
-> If someone challenged these claims, you would resort to an appeal to authori 
-> to support them. 
  
No I wouldn't! I'd just use my own memory of how things have changed 
over the last few decades. 
  
-> Moreover, there is no currently accepted definition of a planet.  You could 
-> find one in a dictionary, but that wouldn't do, since here we are talking ab 
-> a scientific definition.  Scientific definitions almost always differ from 
-> common definitions. 
  
In English, dictionaries publish fake definitions of words that, in 
reality, are defined only by the shifting conventions of usage. In some 
other languages, definitions are established by some authoritative 
governing body, such as the Academie Francaise or the Real Academia 
Espan~ola. When the governing body issues an edict, publishers of 
dictionaries, grammar books, etc., rush to follow suit. But in English, 
we have no such body. Dictionaries have to follow *us*, the common 
speakers of the language. 
  
                           dow 
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