Bloody Philistines.

Linguistic nihilism (if you will) bugs me. A lot. Sure, I screw with the language, but that's because I like the language. A lot. It's like the difference between punching your brother in the arm as you're playing around and decking someone at random on the street. People who insist a word is a word just because someone said it remind me of why someone coined the term "ignoranus". There, I've used that one, and even applied it correctly. Bloody Philistines.

I found the following on Quora while looking for something else entirely. Here's someone who not only understands, but describes it marvelously. (Yes, his description of descriptivism is arguable. It is, however, not in my argument, and therefore I don't want to hear about it. Plus, yes, I know.)

The current fad in linguistics is "descriptivism," which identifies language with communication.  From the descriptive perspective, any time one person says something and another person understands what has been said, the conversation exemplifies perfect grammar and diction ipso facto.  If I point at the remote and say, "hey, gimme, um -- yeah," then (so long as you actually bring the remote) that counted as a complete sentence, made up of proper English words and using proper English grammar, and just as valid as anything Shakespeare ever wrote.  More valid, even, considering that the average man on the street would have a lot easier of a time making sense of the former than the latter.

As you've likely gathered from my diction, I'm not a fan of reducing the study of language to the narrow social science of linguistics.

Let's consider an analogous situation.  Suppose you've got a 1:00 meeting, but your friends want to go out to a restaurant at noon.  You accept, reluctantly; arrive; sit down; and, in the interest of time, ask the waiter what's quickest to prepare.  "In this case, you'll be interested in our daily special, the morceau de bois braisé. It's been simmering for the last several hours, and we can bring it out right now!"  Like any good American, you have no head for French, so you just nod in agreement, preoccupied with the flagging sales figures you have to present in a little over half an hour.

More quickly than expected, the waiter returns with your plate.  The only thing on it, aside from the requisite stack of precisely four haricots verts atop a miniature tomato, is a piece of a cedar log with some bark hanging off of one of the edges.  It appears to have been boiled in a pot of wine for quite some time.

Grabbing the waiter by the wrist before he can get away, you protest: "This isn't food!  This is part of a tree.  And not one of those parts of a tree you're supposed to eat, like a palm heart or, you know, an apple."  After a brief struggle, the waiter decides that this argument is above his pay grade and summons the chef to your table.  Again, you cry: "I came here for lunch.  This isn't food, this is wood!" 

The chef shoots you what is by now a well-practiced look of disdain, and proceeds to educate you to the contrary.  As it turns out, you see, there are actually over three thousand calories in the bois; nothing is preventing your body from using it as fuel, which is of course the definition of "food."  Of course, it's purely plant matter and consequently won't function as a complete protein, and then there's the fact that you'll have to be hospitalized afterwards as the cellulose will pass through your body undigested and may lead to possibly fatal intestinal blockages.  But, you know, it's still technically food.

I'm guessing at this point that most of you would not find the chef's argument very convincing.  So why would we accept the linguist's, which is identical in structure?  Yes, words and phrases like "irregardless," "could care less," and "impactful" can technically be used to communicate something to someone.  On the other hand, they're tasteless, nonsensical, never the most appropriate choice for any given situation, and may lead to possibly fatal intestinal blockages.  If these are words, then wood is food.

Amen.