If the native speakers want to use a word in a new or broader sense, and persistently ignore all authoritarian strictures to the contrary, then that usage becomes "correct." Consider the sage advice of Claude Swanson, F. D. R.'s Secretary of the Navy, on the subject of acquiescence to the inevitable: "When the water reaches the upper level, follow the rats."
—William Safire, American journalist, The New York Times, March 20, 1994