PT7 S4 Q24 - Words that express new ideas

isdmyung

How is AC D the correct answer? Based on the stimulus, I might fallen into the trap of thinking that words that express new ideas become "officially common" once they are put into dictionaries. Either the dictionary editor cares a whole lot about these new words or the words need to get into dictionary. Where in the stimulus does it express the concept of a "severe distortion"?

canihazJD

If a word's meaning was severely distorted it would no longer be an indicator of how well an idea has taken hold among a population. Using "privatization" from the stimulus, say the idea we want to gauge acceptance for is the privatization of healthcare. However, as the use of the term privatization comes under popular usage, it is most often used to refer to the privatization of alpaca farming. Now regardless of how much data we have on the term's usage, we have no idea how well the concept of healthcare privatization has taken hold.

Take a step back and just look at this part:

You can tell how quickly a concept is accepted by looking at how fast words describing it come into common usage.

The dictionary editor part is just there to prime you to pick one of the wrong answers. This is all you need. The assumption in this statement is that when a word comes into common usage it is still used to describe the original concept. Would I be able to gauge the popularity of the 2017 horror thriller Among Us by using data on the preavalance of the term "among us"?