Reply #20: Some people like to purposely misparsenoun phrases and

[Igel]

compound nouns. I suspect many of them like words to have the meanings their etymologies would entail, as well.

Language doesn't work like that. "Greenhouses" don't need to be green; the horrors of having one made of clear glass! surely the English language is corrupted! "Custard pie" in some areas is a euphemism refering neither to something that may be eaten, in some sense, but is not food. And if you try to find the rules that govern English compounds and collocations, you're in for a headache. Compare "Come in and try our kiddie meal!" versus "Come in and try our corn meal!" And let's not consider rye bread vs. white bread. Applying logic here is misguided; language isn't logical in that sense. Trying to parse below the level of a lexicalized phrase is pointless.

If a society finds it appropriate or necessary to make some sort of legal distinction between a child born to a single mother and one born to an umarried parent, it may do so, and will find the linguistic means to make the distinction. As far as bastard sons were concerned, it was an important distinction for society at the time: bastards did not have the same inheritance rights, but a son born to a mother who lacked a husband because he died after she had conceived potentially could. Some people still make this distinction, for less weighty legal reasons. There is no real social stigma attached to being a bastard now, except in very narrow circles that such children are not likely to frequent when the label would matter; and precious little to producing one. Whether this is in everybody's best interests rather varies on the person possessing the interests, who's defining 'best', and what that definition is.

Wrangling over how a phrase is used isn't the problem, and frequently comes off as benighted or misguided by those that believe that language does not, in fact, shape reality in all its various aspects. We've chucked prescriptionist ideology long ago in favor of linguistic usage; why it's so hard for people to stop reverting to Renaissance thought for their linguistic views is difficult for me to understand.