On semantic weakening: How much simpler it would have been for the USA and its allies invading Iraq looking for WMD if "Weapon of mass destruction" meant the same then as it does now. The suspect in the Boston bombings has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction, which in that case was a conventional bomb, and Iraq must have possessed some of them.
On Comic Sans: Why is "Sans" pronounced like a plural of "San" instead of the way I pronounce it as a French word? It is a sans serif font (without serifs), so it must be the French word.
I pronounce the full phrase sans serif just as you describe Comic Sans -- as American as San Francisco and Sandwiches.
The article is good reading but the thesis on hate comic sans is incredibly vague and incredible. The author traces its genesis to Microsoft dot matrix texts, and seems to imply the one was all the fonts available to the early self publishers, who in turn gave comic sans a bad name with their poor quality productions. But what must have happened in history was nearly instantly before anyone noticed anything all the fonts as of today came on line all at once so that there was no special prejudice about any font over another whatsoever, so any hate must be personal tastes alone.
Christopher Murray said
On Comic Sans: Why is "Sans" pronounced like a plural of "San" instead of the way I pronounce it as a French word? It is a sans serif font (without serifs), so it must be the French word.
Sans has been used in English for more than 600 years, and lost the French pronunciation long, long ago.
Peter
In public it's never used except humorously for 'without,' like 'moi' humorously for 'me.' Am I wrong?