I've collected a few links I've given out before on this subject if you'd like to read more into it: https://www.thejach.com/view/2022/1/thoughts_on_writings_on_... To reiterate some of my thoughts (which are far less interesting or important than the links) I think it's a very old and tiresome and largely pointless debate, even if it can be a fun waste of time to ponder, but in any case it's mostly been lost. #lisp even gave up its CL-focused IRC channel in the move to Libera and is now at #commonlisp.

But that's just like most debates over words and changing common usage meanings. It doesn't even matter if the new common usage is or becomes the most popular usage or not, at some point it's common enough that a new entry in any dictionary is warranted. (The term "Lisp" obviously predates Common Lisp, but part of the success of Common Lisp led to "Lisp" gaining common usage to refer just to CL.) It's unfortunate that the alternate usage isn't something crisp, like how "literally" can be taken to mean something not literally true and is just an exaggeration or emphasis, and instead a common usage of "Lisp/lisp/a lisp/Lisp family/Lisp dialect" is as a poorly defined fuzzy feeling of the spirit or flavor of "Lisp-like" languages. It can be a mess trying to pin down whatever commonalities are meant by that feeling. My favorite attempt is something like a language written in its own literal data structures. But depending on the speaker the feeling might encompass things like WebAssembly (s-exps sorta!) or Dylan or even Julia, and in the past has once encompassed things like Ruby or Python (in the sense of "acceptable lisp").

For me and many others (like the title of this thread) unqualified Lisp still typically means Common Lisp, it's still a common enough usage, and I'll at least keep using it that way almost all the time for the foreseeable future just as others avoid using "literally" as "figuratively" or "virtually". But I don't think it's worthwhile to do so from a "fight the good fight" standpoint or to be consumed by a melancholic desire for a rectification of names. On the brighter side, at least for Lisp if there's communication confusion it's probably only a good thing in producing cognitive dissonance and driving some curiosity towards CL. (For example if someone talks about unqualified Lisp in conjunction with the form of GOTO that CL has which has been there since LISP 1.5, or in conjunction with OOP, or the function compile-file, someone reading with a particular fuzzy usage of Lisp in mind may think "I thought Lisp was a functional/minimal/interpreted language?" and go on to learn something. Similar positive learning benefits can come from using the fuzzy meaning of Lisp in e.g. setting up events or community spaces, where Schemers or Clojurists or whoever are welcome, since that gives more people in those other languages as well as the fuzzy-Lisp-curious a chance to learn about CL, and CL people a chance to learn about what's going on outside the bubble.)