What Is A Definition, Anyway?
Whether the word is "catch" or "recession," changing the definition in response to a debate means more confusion.
For a number of years, NFL reporters, analysts and fans argued about something they couldn't understand: What is a catch?
Many times, after a quarterback threw a pass, a player would get his hands on the ball, appear to have secured it, but referees would rule otherwise. This led to the NFL changing the definition in its rulebook several times.
Usually this happened after an apparent catch that was ruled incomplete meant the difference between a team winning or losing the game. In other cases, it happened when a high-profile player was involved.
The problem was that, every time the NFL went back to revise the rulebook, it made things more confusing. People would watch clips of receivers or defenders appearing to secure the ball and get both feet inbounds, but for one reason or another, the ruling was that it wasn't a catch.
And when you have NFL officials come out to explain why it wasn't, they almost never satisfied criticisms.
Ultimately, the NFL went back to the rulebook and revised the wording again, to the point where it at least satisfied most people.
There will, of course, still be debates about what should or shouldn't constitute a catch. But the point is, if you spend too much time changing a definition to satisfy whatever debate dominates the conversation, you're likely to cause more confusion.
And, thus, we must answer this question: What is a recession?
It's usually defined as a prolonged downturn in the economy. Some have described it as two consecutive quarters of decline in a country's gross domestic product.
That is, until the latest United States economic report came out, revealing a GDP decline for the second straight quarter (in other words, six months), and the "what is a recession" debate began.
This got to the point that Wikipedia's page about recessions got changed multiple times before the page was locked. It immediately raised suspicion: Are they doing this just to cover for the Biden administration?
One can then look at more examples of how the definition of words changed, which resulted in dictionaries changing those definitions. It's a new version of "what is a catch," only the NFL isn't involved.
There are those who point out that the definitions of words change in response to what society thinks. But that begs the question: Who defines society?
If the overwhelming majority of the population is utilizing a word in a particular way, one has an argument that the definition of the word may need to change. But what happens if the usage of a word is limited to a small group of people?
If one argues that it was small groups of people who defined words in the past, why does it matter if we change the demographics of those small groups? Are we still not having a select group deciding what words mean?
In our online world, it's possible for a small group of people to gain enough influence that they can convince, if not coerce, others into changing a word's definition. When that does happen, does this small group of people therefore declare they are "society" and thus the change must stick?
The real problem with changing definitions, especially if it appears to happen on a whim, is that it looks less like adapting to whatever "society" wants and more like giving in to what certain individuals want so they can win more arguments.
But if all we do is keep changing definitions, we're going to run into the same problem the NFL had when it kept changing the definition of a catch: More confusion and more complaints about how the change doesn't make any sense.
If one wants to argue why we are not in a recession, one needs to do more than just change a Wikipedia page. One needs to outline a consistent argument for what constitutes a recession and not simply change it to pacify a select few — particularly if that select few is claiming we aren’t really in a recession.
Furthermore, one should not change the definition simply because they don't want to be critical of whoever is in power. That's no different than changing e the NFL rule of a catch simply because a high-profile player had an apparent catch ruled incomplete.