Rose_P

Yes to this most succinct expressing of it. It's not a new concept. In 1968 I took a college course on the subject of "transformational - generative grammar" (What can I say - I needed the credits!). The gist of it was that if language didn't evolve we'd all be saying "ugh" and pointing. Almost nobody can even make sense of our own language as it was written/spoken a few hundred years ago. Shakespeare, for example, is obscure without lots of footnotes. Chaucer has to be translated. Ordinary people in their days had no trouble understanding them.

I like the word "sewist" because no matter how well I understand from context that "sewer" is not necessarily a waste conduit, it often distracts me with that silly thought. It got started at a time when "sewer" was more likely to be a spoken word than a written one. With widespread increase in written communications on this subject, such as this forum, it's not surprising that an alternative word that makes better sense when reading is starting to take hold. Maybe 20 years from now people will snort if you type "sewer" when you mean "sewist".