Semantic Stretch

I have written here before about how exasperated I feel when people overuse a term, wringing all the meaning out of it before handing it back, limp, to the people who originally coined it.

Now I have learned that there is a term for that. It's called "semantic stretch." Authors Chip Heath and Dan Heath included it in their book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.

Semantic stretch has encouraged a lively debate about the use of four-letter functionals in Churchmarketingsucks.org.