If you check the Wikipedia page for 'Wheelbarrow,' you'll find that the sisterhood of language usage snobs (SOLUS¹, for you lovers of acronym) now insist that the word's origin has had nothing to do with a barrel. Do you really expect me to believe that?
Well, maybe they're right-from a certain point of view. Words do morph, and as it happens, we keep track of some of it. But how can one be certain that the word 'barrel' doesn't share its origin with the same old English word that eventually came to be used for wheeled, half barrel-shaped somethings that haul stuff? As I age, more and more I question conventional assertions. There's just too much widespread folk wisdom. Further, the shortest, most certain sentences are among those most likely to contain errors. Trust me².
If you bother to check Merriam-Webster's definition of 'Media,' you'll find that they're still not yet capable of describing what the word means without again using a variation of the word itself in its own description. ¿Tell me, did you not start out reading the previous sentence with a sort of comfortable certainty, as though you had a brief feeling of 'well, at least we can still trust a dictionary as a resource,' right before you were forced to start thinking about the absurdity? Carefully controlled semantical nuance considered and then rejected, they really dropped the reins on that one. Why couldn't they flex enough to at least describe 'media' metaphorically, like by calling it 'the paint with which a canvas is painted,' or something? The pursuit of accuracy and precision will have a diminished return; when a medium becomes so much concerned with improving these that it starts to lose the intended affect of its message, what then is the use? If even the definitional authorities are full of sh!t, exactly which authorities remain unimpacted enough for us to trust?
Answer: none of them³. Remain critical. Whether it's the usage of a word or of a wheel-barrel, consider potential for yourself, and then apply your own solutions. History, and thus certainty, remain(s) nebulous. Authorities have access to no better records; whenever they do, their authority is no longer legitimate. And as for you agents of standardization, your frustrations will be circular. You are digging in sand, in vain, to attempt to control the fractalized splintering that is expression. We have a finite amount of time, and we must use a finite number of combinations in order to exchange our ideas, but the nuance with which our ideas may be written is without limitation, and the substrate upon which they're placed is without end.
¹Note the poetry of this 'word': it's as though comfort could be found in concerted neuroticism. The development of an unnecessarily strong ability to express has a diminishing, and then eventually inverting, return.
²Yep, that two-word statement was irony. Oh, you noticed? You're very clever!
³Be sure to observe all local laws and regulations. It is also best to follow (most) any advisement that has been given by a medical professional. Consider that this message is mostly just for my own personal entertainment and vanity; as such, you probably should disregard everything you've just read. In fact, this discussion might've been in orbit of a completely unrelated topic, had I not felt the urge to spurn that pretentious twit of a recent commenter who had insisted that my dialect's use of 'heighth' is somehow not arbitrary, and, as it follows from his reasoning, empirically "wrong." Look, I'm not saying that the MLA and APA can't have their standardized formats-I'm just wondering if hard-heads like that actually realize that our words are just grunts that've been modified over time.