Neville –
Thank you for your clear response. I’ll agree that rhetorically, my anecdotals and yours balance or cancel each other out; but I’ve also looked at and referred to the two most important studies on Orthodox Jewish identity in the past two decades, maybe ever, and I haven’t found evidence to bear out what you are saying, while finding evidence that even when an individual’s level of observance is lessening, he still identifies as observant.
I don’t agree that usage immediately adapts definition. If I accept that the shifting usage is not deliberate and self serving , it still fits into several of the categories of Blank’s typology for semantic change. I’m not a linguist, so I can’t get more specific; I couldn’t say with confidence which is likeliest; but one of the things that is accepted across the board is that the change is almost always an evolutionary process, one which does not happen in the space of a few years. Your example using the word that has now entered the common lexicon has taken over 100 years since it came into less parochial use.
As for your assertion about how the Modern Orthodox (who as you know are not monolithic in their views) use the term chareidi, Yes, I have encountered it used negatively, but I have encountered that in centrist orthodox contexts too. Importantly, it is uncommon, in my experience. For myself, I think all of these subsets are ridiculous. One is observant or one is not. One may be stricter in one’s obervance, or less so. One may be more inclined to follow or adhere to the worldview and practice of one manhig or another, but that is more precisely defined, in my opinion, as a function of identity rather than observance. Which leads back to my point that when the word “frum” has been conflated with other variables which give it rather more meaning than a description of a standard of halachic practice, it doesn’t reflect anything more than the preferences and prejudices of the user, even if these are unconscious.
As for offense: I know who I am, where I came from, and who I’ll have to give account to in the future. I’m neither threatened nor offended by what you call yourself. You can call yourself an angel or a broomstick if it makes you happy. Not my business. What you call others? Well, if your sense of self identity depends on how you define others rather than how you define yourself, you’ve got bigger issues than my concerns with linguistic precision to deal with.