malaprop amongst the flowers

[Mark A. Mandel]

A local jazz disk jockey continually uses the word "arcane" when he
means "archaic".  His special interest -- obsession, more correctly --
is the jazz styles through the bebop movement, and their discography,
band personnel, &c.  I have heard him give the telephone numbers of a
Harlem club that closed in 1937.  But to the point: he will say of,
perhaps, the C-melody saxophone, "it was already arcane when this
musician first started to play it".  I suppose he could justify this if
he claims that "arcane" means "little known"?

We are wandering into the morass of prescriptivism here, of course.
What would the White Queen say?
        <<<

So what? The guy's wrong.  Tell him so, politely, of course.

-- Mark A. Mandel, stickler, fussbudget, prescriptivist, and maniac for
clear communication