[eliben]

If you're right then it's a sad situation. I hate it when terms start morphing into unrelated interpretations by means of public drift.

[plorkyeran]

In this case at least the meaning it's drifting towards still actually means something rather than just a meaningless buzzword.

[Helianthus]

Just wait until Big Data is referred to similarly to Big Oil...

[Thrymr]

> I hate it when terms start morphing into unrelated interpretations by means of public drift.

That's how language has always worked. There are people who are still uptight by the current "misuse" of words like "awesome" and "hopeful", but those of us who grew up with different meanings in common usage mostly just shrug.

For technical terms, usually I can live with words having domain-specific meaning that differs from common usage, but "theory" is one I still can't get over. It causes too much miscommunication.