A plant is not a weed by nature but by circumstance. That is, it’s a weed if it doesnt fit the plan of a particular garden. And that is why our arguments about words and usages are so fierce. What one person happily plants in a language garden can be viewed as a weed threatening the beauty of another person’s garden. It leads to quarrels when we believe that only our own gardens have the proper words in the proper arrangements. Tradition and logic and aesthetics are the arguments we use in favor of the language gardens we cultivate, but mostly to rationalize our choices. Others have equal access to tradition, logic, and aesthetics to justify their gardens.
Allan Metcalf, “Weeding the Gardens of Language”