the amateur linguist

When I was a child, we used the word "gay" as a mild playground remonstrative. Now, this innocent use is verboten as it "impugns the homosexual." Yet "gay" once stood for the light of heart, the merry, and the licentious. Must we permit the amateur linguist to calcify its meaning in severity and forever forbid the ever-shifting currents of convention from carrying "gay" back to its roots in levity? Can we permit it? ~ convention admits no master.