Whenever you try and simplify how people speak, it's just hard to squish them into a simple rule. Language doesn't work that way.

Back in the 19th century, our marketing folks decided to play up the refined usage angle because prescriptivism was very popular: our dictionary is where you go to learn anything about anything. That really set the tone in North America for how people responded to dictionaries.

Lexicographers may be nerds who don't like human contact, but we're still people.

It's difficult to sit down and write a letter back saying, "you know what, even if we remove the word from the dictionary, people will still continue to use it." That's the tightrope that we walk - "gay marriage" is another example, or the word "nude."

Words have always been political, and that means that, in many people's minds, dictionaries are political. Because that's what dictionaries do: they do words.

The history of English is full of that, lots of things done with good intentions that 200 years down the road have resulted in a giant mess, where someone's pet peeves - like John Dryden and his hatred of terminal prepositions - could become real standards.

Whenever you try and simplify how people speak, it's just hard to squish them into a simple rule. Language doesn't work that way.