&gt; The non-tech world thinks wiki means Wikipedia.<p>I&#x27;m talking about the opposite case, where somebody thinks &quot;Wikipedia&quot; means &quot;wiki&quot;.  I don&#x27;t think I&#x27;ve ever heard anybody describe a wiki as a Wikipedia before.  I don&#x27;t think that&#x27;s a widespread misunderstanding at all.<p>Regardless, language <i>does</i> work this way.  The value of words is in their meanings.  Sometimes those meanings drift, but that doesn&#x27;t make that kind of drift valuable, and so it&#x27;s important to resist that drift.  If you make the word &quot;wiki&quot; ambiguous, it loses value.