Changes in the definition or spelling of words?

A lot of words have been misused so much that their official definition has changed: for example the word "decimate" originally meant killing one in every ten people (punishment used by the Roman army) but now people are using the word to describe the killing of any large proportion of a group.



Also the word "you're" is commonly misspelled as "your", presumably due to the rise in popularity of text-speak.



So my question is: how long does a word have to be misused or misspelled before the new meaning/spelling becomes officially accepted, for example by the people who compile dictionaries?Changes in the definition or spelling of words?
Well I can think of one in my lifetime and that is die and dice.

Dice is used so often to mean the singular as well as plural form that now it is accepted as correct for singular. When I was younger it was never correct. (Mind you this example doesn`t bother me, it is sensible)

So a guess might be thirty years for sensible ones.Changes in the definition or spelling of words?
I don't think there are any firm rules.



Those who compile the Oxford English Dictionary (the major authority in this) meet regularly to consider 'new' words and decide on the evidence available to them whether they should be included in future editions of the dictionary.



Their most recently added new words are here:



http://www.askoxford.com/worldofwords/ne鈥?/a>



and here:



http://www.oed.com/news/updates/revision鈥?/a>Changes in the definition or spelling of words?
If you're like me, I won't ever accept the misspelling of words. But I do make mistakes. Decimate is an ancient word. We don't use a lot of the biblical terms and language. We are more literate these days, and a lot more is written in one form or another, and so change will take longer. Try applying for a job in text speak, I don't think you would get the job. Regarding "your", You're perfectly right. But there are others like, It was him "what" did it, instead of that. I seen it, instead of saw, I done it, instead of did. And what about the double negatives, for instance, I don't know nothing. If you don't know nothing, then you know something. Then there is the southern way of pronouncing the letter A as Ar, and Th as F, as in Barf.

I don't know where that comes from, particularly Ar. How do they know which A to say Ar. Like the words Barstad instead of Bastard, or Sarndra, instead of Sandra, and Afghanistarn instead of Afghanistan. And surely the people from Glasgow, don't want it called Glarsgow.