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Good point, but define "reasonable."
Since many uneducated people thought to "beg the question" means to plead for an answer, we should throw out the long-standing meaning that to beg the question refers to a fallacy of argument in which the premise presupposes the truth of its conclusion because the many wrongs make a right?
I can easily look up the meaning of the phrase "beg the question."
I cannot look up "hiss" and find anything that says it's a misnomer in the case of cats or in the case of snakes where I don't hear "sss" but instead "ffff" or "hhhh," or that it can only be used with sibilants to the exclusion of any other usage; in fact I find only the opposite.
Is it reasonable to give up and let "She laid on her side" be more acceptable than "She lay on her side" because lots of people think it "sounds" better?
Again, I can look up the correct grammar here. There is a verifiable rule in place. I have actually looked, because I'm that much of a time-waster, and I cannot find anything that says cats don't hiss OR that you cannot apply hissing to dialogue without sibilants except people's opinions on the internet.
I conducted a straw pole of the three veterinarians I know, and they say the feline spit reflex is intended to cast droplets and "hiss" is a widespread misnomer. So I say, "accepted" by whom?
Cats spit. They also hiss.
Three people you personally know and no factual evidence I can look up < the definition in several dictionaries that say hissing can mean to "whisper in an urgent manner" without sibilants, widespread usage, my own books on domestic animals, and, again, people who actually write papers on this subject, among other things I can look up and verify for myself.
Part of an editors job is to correct facts.
But how do you judge what a fact is? If the dictionary says it can be used as a dialogue tag, does that not make it a fact of usage? And if actual textbooks and scientific papers use the word where there are no sibilants, is it not at least valid to say that in creative writing it can be used, even metaphorically, if you will only have it that way?
I'll leave off this now as I find I'm feeling rather silly going on and on about this... I really just wanted to point out that the wrongness or rightness of word usage is often a slippery thing, and more often than not, we are more freed than hindered
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