 The case of Humpty Dumpty shouldn’t be misunderstood, however. The establishment or maintenance of a linguistic convention isn’t simply a matter of majority opinion within a speaking community. A convention is more than a collection of beliefs, understandings, and treatments. It carries normative force with it, and normative force, although undergirded by and impossible without community support, doesn’t simply sway in the direction that the breeze of majority opinion happens to be blowing at the time. The normative nature of a convention enables it to be relatively, though not wholly, resistant to contrary opinion. That’s why it’s possible for most people to spell “accommodate” incorrectly (the conventions of spelling call for it to be spelled with two ‘m’s, but most people spell it with one) and why it’s possible for most people to have an incorrect belief about the meaning of the word “fortuitous” (the conventions of the language call for it to mean by chance or accidental, but most people think it means lucky).