It did take on a new meaning, then lose that meaning. I'm not sure how best to characterize that meaning, but I do have evidence it existed. From the Oxford English Dictionary:

âb.b Of troops: Properly disciplined. Obs. rareâ"1.

ÂÂÂ1690 Lond. Gaz. No. 2568/3 We hear likewise that the French are in a great Allarm in Dauphine and Bresse, not having at present 1500 Men of regulated Troops on that side.

(Yes, Slashdot will probably have munged a few of those characters. It's a copy + paste from the electronic edition.)

At any rate, I disagree that it's strange for a word to gain a new meaning and lose that new meaning. It doesn't require extraordinary evidence because it's simply not that unusual. Note however that the word never lost its old meaning, so it didn't "revert"; it merely lost the new meaning.

Actually, no. Twitter has protected tweets which are viewable only by approved followers, as well as direct messages viewable only by sender and recipient. There are, in fact, people who use Twitter without posting any public messages at all.

I don't really understand what point you were trying to make with this public/private distinction, but I thought I'd correct the factual error.

I recommend realpine.

By the way, I refer to realpine as pine, and I suspect at least some other people do the same. It feels like referring to vim as vi. It's less precise, to be sure, but it doesn't feel wrong.

Mr. Williamson promptly left Apple headquarters in Antarctica, and walked to his home in Middelfart, Denmark."

I don't get it. Is this some kind of humor, or some kind of random gibberish added to the submission to see if anyone notices?

Maybe the submitter was trying to see if the editors were paying attention . . . ?

McGurk effect. My kingdom for an edit button.

(Yes, I used the preview button. No, I didn't notice :-)