Namaste ji,
I wholeheartedly agree but would take the further position that it doesn't matter if your audience understands you. We learn new words by hearing ones we haven't heard before, in context. This is how language evolves, and often through slang to accepted terminology. =) That said, I also wouldn't use a new word like that on a boss unless I knew that boss was the kind of person who would love it.
And this is how divergent dialects grow as well, one region uses a word they are comfortable with, that other regions may not use or may use in a different context. Some areas of the US don't use the word "Soda" or "Pop" to describe the fizzy drink at all, some use "Coke" as a generic for all fizzy drinks. Others hear "Pop" and think "Father" and get confused. Another good one is "Sub", "Hoagie", "Hero", "Po-boy (also said poorboy)", "Grinder", "Torpedo", "Blimpy" or "Wedge" - all regionalisms for the same kind of sandwich, and depending where you are, if it is to go, they can come in a "Bag", a "Poke" or a "Sack".
My favorite dialect mix-ups are between the UK and the US. I'm sure anyone not used to British words would get equally discomfited as the people you speak of, Believer ji, when they are asked if they have a "Fag". A friend of mine and I were traveling back to her house to get something for a trip to Poland and she hadn't been home in months. She told me she hoped I wouldn't mind too much if she took a few minutes to "go potty" with her dogs, who she missed a lot. Despite being long used to the dialect, that one threw me so badly I blushed and stammered for a few moments trying to figure it out. My friend had no idea why.
Here's one that nearly got me in big trouble. In the Northeast of the US, specifically in New England, we still have a bunch of old laws from the colonial era, still active though most are not enforced. Some are very funny. One such states that alcoholic beverages/boxes may not leave the store open and/or uncovered - everything must remain sealed and covered in a bag or package (this is still enforced in some areas). So, over time liquor stores became known as "Package Stores" in this region. Sometime in the last 100 years, that was shortened to "Packie", as in: "Man it's hot today, I could really use a beer (pronounced: beeyah LOL), let's hit the Packie on the way home." So I'm in the UK, and some friends of mine and I were driving to the local "Off License" (UK colloquialism for liquor store) and it's been a long ride. I unthinkingly ask how much longer till we'll get to the packie... I probably don't need to finish this tale. Suffice to say, if you're not in New England, don't use that term and if you are and you hear it, don't give it any extra meaning and take offense.
Personally, I find it ridiculous that people have this sense of "purity" or "ownership" of the language. English itself is a mash-up of several languages and we borrow words and phrases from others even today. We actively make up new words by mashing together words from other concurrent languages. Few of our words today have a history or root in "Old English", as Fem points out, and even that ancient form was an amalgam of several languages. It's one of the strengths of the English language - and coincidentally it is also a strength of other modern languages that are now flourishing.
I think it's awesome that "prepone" was coined and is used. I also quite like "Postposition" as an article of grammar. I don't know if we had the word or it is another Indian born one, but I never ran into it till I started studying Hindi. =)
~Pranam-s
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