A rant against illogical, but widely accepted, language misusages.

I consider myself as tolerant, even as liberal, as the next person when it comes to accepting a new idiom entering the language--idiom being, in one dictionary definition, "an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings of its constituent elements."

But I cannot tolerate the casual acceptance of sloppy word usages that defy logic or etymology. Here are my four leading candidates, leading off with one recently cited by the language maven William Safire in his New York Times Sunday language column:

* Morph: It's a delightful sound, morph, which may account for the sudden popularity of this shortened version of metamorphosis or the back-formed verb metamorphose. It's now commonly used to mean change, as in, "Following the election, the moderate Democrat morphed into a conservative one."

The only problem, though, as Safire pointed out, is that morph is derived from the wrong half of the word. Morph comes from the Greek meaning "form" or "structure." It's the meta part that carries the meaning of "change," also from the Greek, meaning "after," "beyond," and "after."

But meta'd doesn't roll off the tongue as easily as morph, and change is apparently too pedestrian, too old-fashioned.

Podium: Here's another case of ignoring obvious etymology, using podium in place of lectern. Whenever I read, "He pounded the podium to make his point," I picture a pitiful person on his hands and knees slamming his fists on a platform.

Pod-, the dictionary says, is "a learned borrowing from the Greek meaning 'foot,' used in the formation of compound words." Think podiatrist.

Lectern, on the other hand, comes to us from the Latin word legere, meaning to "gather, select, read." Think lecture.

* Center around: No etymology lessons needed here; this phrase is just plain illogical. A center is a point; something centers on or centers in something else. If you like the word around, use circle around or revolve around.

Center around makes about as much sense as zigzag along a straight line.

* Literally: This adverb is now probably used more as an intensifier meaning, as the dictionary has it, "in effect, virtually," than as an adverb meaning "in the literal or strict sense."

But it still grates when I read something like, "My stocks literally went into the toilet."

Department of lost causes

I realize, of course, that all of these are lost causes.

Morph is too likable and colloquial to go away soon.

I've seen center around in The New Yorker and The New Times, both supposedly carefully edited.

The dictionary gives lectern as the third definition of podium,

Literally's fourth definition is "in effect, virtually."

But in my lonely defense, I must point out that most usage dictionaries point out that, in each of these cases, "the most careful writers" will avoid these words with morphed meanings.