It’s possible, admittedly I don’t expect this to be the case, for the word to have transformed without a lie_raemon ever being told. I think words are almost always pointing to a cluster rather than a concrete thing, even in most technical domains (where the clusters are tighter but rarely perfect).
[edit: I’m not that confident about percentage of techical jargon that is perfectly precise].
So, it seems most useful to me to define lying as ’saying a thing that is outside the current cluster of the word might reasonably mean.
If manager initially means ‘manage a team of people’ and then later means ‘manage some people + get some perks’ and then means ‘only sorta-kinda-manage those people while getting some perks’ and eventually just means ‘get the perks’...
...I think it’s fair to say something distorted and deceptive has happened, but I’m not sure it makes sense to classify any given instance as a lie.
It’s possible, admittedly I don’t expect this to be the case, for the word to have transformed without a lie_raemon ever being told. I think words are almost always pointing to a cluster rather than a concrete thing, even in most technical domains (where the clusters are tighter but rarely perfect).
[edit: I’m not that confident about percentage of techical jargon that is perfectly precise].
So, it seems most useful to me to define lying as ’saying a thing that is outside the current cluster of the word might reasonably mean.
If manager initially means ‘manage a team of people’ and then later means ‘manage some people + get some perks’ and then means ‘only sorta-kinda-manage those people while getting some perks’ and eventually just means ‘get the perks’...
...I think it’s fair to say something distorted and deceptive has happened, but I’m not sure it makes sense to classify any given instance as a lie.