'so many "incredible" news sources here, and even CREDIBLE ones!'

[elleng]

SO GLAD to see/hear someone recognizing the MEANING of INCREDIBLE!

[Mister Ed]

1. Thank goodness. The misuse of "incredible" is a pet peeve of mine.

For example, we so often hear praise being heaped upon someone for being "an incredible actor".

That's the worst thing you say about an actor! No actor anywhere wants to hear that their performance was not credible.

[NoRethugFriends]

2. the meaning of that word has been changed for a long time

[Mister Ed]

8. Alas! I wonder if next we'll find that "literally" literally means "not literally"...

...since it's been misused in that manner by so many for so long.

I wonder how long and how widely and how badly a word must be misused before the editors of dictionaries give up and consider it redefined.

[Elessar Zappa]

10. That's the nature of language.

It’s how languages evolve. See how many words from the past have different meanings. It’s not right or wrong, it’s just the natural course of things.

[Mister Ed]

12. I think Lewis Carroll more or less wrote this entire DU thread in the 1870's.

"The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

[Celerity]

3. Cambridge Dictionary

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/incredible

[Mister Ed]

9. That's good, solid evidence that resolute ignorance and laziness can eventually triumph over all.

In the days of my distant youth, the items in those Cambridge Dictionary examples might have been described as an "incredibly good performance" or an "incredibly fast motorbike". Now, due to long misuse, even the astute and fastidious might say that the performance and the motorbike themselves were somehow not credible.

It's much like the meaning of "hysterical". A joke might have been called "hysterically funny", but those who didn't understand or care what they said eventually began calling the joke itself hysterical. (How can a joke, and not a person, become hysterical?) It might well be that this definition has also been changed. I tremble to turn the page of my (virtual) dictionary to that word and find out.

[Celerity]

11. language evolves, always has, always will

[Mister Ed]

13. Aye, and devolves as well. n/t

[Turbineguy]

4. Somewhat like the restaurant setting:

Snooty Maitre d': "Do you have reservations?"

Customer: "Yes, but we came anyway."

[brooklynite]

5. No idea what this refers to...

[elleng]

6. Part of intro @ White House Correspondent's dinner tonight.

[Funtatlaguy]

7. The line of the night was host Jost saying

And one of them farts himself awake at his porn star sex hush money trial…and yet…the race is still tied.