What counts as pirated?
Words that are simply misused don’t count as pirated. For example, many people consider “hopefully” to be misused when people really mean “I hope” and some of us are driven nuts by the use of “impact” as a verb (not to mention “impactful”). But those aren’t pirated words. They’re just misused. A pirated word is one that has been twisted by a political or commercial group for their own selfish purposes. The hotel industry knew what it was doing (well, probably) when years ago it decided that it would call its patrons “guests.” Sounds good, but it means the opposite. Words are pirated in order to change our way of thinking without earning it. Pirated words try to put something over on us.
