Actually there is no reason why on adopting spare bits of vocabulary people should not revisit their etymology to give it a better 'spin'. that after all is exactly what has happened to the word Keratoconus which was once described as a 'conal kerasis on (notice not of) the cornea'.
Here is the OED
kerat- combining form variant spelling of kerato- shortened before a vowel (as in keratectomy).
kerato- combining form (also kerat-)
1 relating to keratin or horny tissue.
they only give 'pertaining to the cornea' as a secondary meaning. Again the source is Greek: ORIGIN Greek keras, kerat- ‘horn.’
It is clear that before electron microscopy, the assumption was the keratoconus was a growth on the surface of the cornea. Later it was understood as a thinning of the cornea, so that IOP pushes out a bulge that forms the distinctive cone shape.
Rather than change the word when understanding advanced, they just revisited the etymology and converted the horny growth into a "conus" pertaining to the cornea, and the spin became complete. And it allowed them to pretend that this was what they meant all the time!
It is not only journalists and politicians who use spin.
Andrew
