[coldtea]

>I highly doubt that there are millions of people who call themselves vegan without having heard of this definition.

You can doubt it, but you'd be wrong. At best they'd chanced about some historical background piece that contained the definition. But the huge majority wont tie it to some 19th century "Vegan Society" or know/remember anything about some "original definition".

>It's kind of like the term hacker. The general public understands it to mean one thing, but vast majority of people who apply the term to themselves understand it to mean another thing.

Well, the latter are wrong in your sense (etymology, history) too. There are references to the term "hacker" to mean intruder on other systems from decades before people self-identified and pushed for the supposedly benign-only definition. (E.g. there are reports of "hackers" messing with telephone services and bringing them down as far back as the early sixties (literally mentioned as "hackers", not phreakers).

[ma2rten]

But the huge majority wont tie it to some 19th century "Vegan Society" or know/remember anything about some "original definition".

Do you have any evidence for that claim? All the vegans I know use this definition.

Also, the vegan society was started in the 20th century.

[coldtea]

>Do you have any evidence for that claim?

No, but you can check it empirically and statistically.

>All the vegans I know use this definition.

Well, I know several people that self-identify as vegan (annoyingly so), who have no idea about the origins and just seen a few videos or read some articles and were convinced to try that diet.

(And of course they don't belong to any society either).

>Also, the vegan society was started in the 20th century.

Yes, confused it with the vegetarian society.