->>  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.

 DW> No I wouldn't! I'd just use my own memory of how things have
 DW> changed over the last few decades.

Ok.  I was wrong about you, then.  Usually, when there is a
"discussion" over the meaning of a word, people go for the
dictionary.  They use the dictionary as an authority.  An authority that
establishes definitions.

I guess you're are saying that YOU are the authority when you are one of
the folks participating in such "discussions".

Regardless, it's still an appeal to authority.

->> 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.

 DW> In English, dictionaries publish fake definitions of words
 DW> that, in reality, are defined only by the shifting
 DW> conventions of usage. In some other languages, definitions
 DW> are established by some authoritative governing body, such as
 DW> the Academie Francaise or the Real Academia Espan~ola. When
 DW> the governing body issues an edict, publishers of
 DW> dictionaries, grammar books, etc., rush to follow suit. But
 DW> in English, we have no such body. Dictionaries have to follow
 DW> *us*, the common speakers of the language.

Interesting.  I didn't know that about dictionaries.

Regardless, there is still no accepted definition among the experts in the
field for the term "planet".  And this will continue to be true
until there is such a consensus.  And when, if ever, there is such a
consensus, how will we know without an appeal to authority?

The question's rhetorical.  We won't have any way of knowing unless we
appeal to the experts in the field.  In other words, until we appeal to
authority.

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