of regional or social usage as well as meaning. A word may be only a rare regional usage, or a word may be used worldwide by standard English speakers and have one or several evolving definitions. Since people in a community or group tend to have similar word usage patterns, analysis of these patterns can be a way to predict the communities and groups a person belongs to.

History

According to Jeremy Butterfield, "The first person we know of who made usage refer to language was Daniel Defoe,

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