specifically : a historical process by which the semantic and connotative status of a word tends to decline
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
I don't think the wrong use of the word has led to it losing impact, just people are more comfortable using it. A lot of people think genocide is like, the Holocaust, but nobody actually needs to die for something to be genocide. It can refer to the destruction of culture or religion within a specific group as well. Like sending first nation children to residential schools. Even if no one died in that process it was genocide by trying to eliminate the culture.
People are just more comfortable with using the word as it is defined as, rather than just the really treacherous stuff like Nazi Germany and Rwanda.
Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
I like how the C became a copyright symbol.