To those who would be word gurus

Sometimes people go through the exercise of answering what is necessary, what is important, and what is urgent. People taking managerial school often get asked this question because it is supposed to help them know how to priortize their days. To me, this is merely a semantics game. All three words, necessary, important, and urgent, have some commonalities in their semantic domains that keep them from being heirarchical. Managerial schools teach that necessary items get done on a regular basis, not every day. Important items get done first in day whether or not they are necessary or not. Urgent items get done immediately, and since they have deadlines for being accomplished, they are never routine. That order makes sense if a person gets to control the meanings of words in the English language.

But, the language is bigger than one speaker, and only certain people during certain stages in a word's history get to control the meaning of words used. Just as easily as the above hierarchy, one could say that what is necessary for a moment in time gets done because it is the important item for that moment, thus requiring our urgent handling. In that way they all have the same meaning. Or what about this meaning? Nothing should ever get to crisis stage (urgent) if everything gets handled in its appropriate time (importance), so working a plan or schedule is always necessary. We could go on.

All that to say, people should not get too excited nor too bent out of shape over following someone else's model for word definitions. If one wants to willingly do so, fine. But, don't impose those definitions unless he knows it is specific to time and place. Or unless a person or group is destiny's choice for changing a word in its own historical cycle.