Rage against the curocracy: why web has bred too many 'curators'

On Twitter, someone recently posted that they had curated a cup of tea, whatever that means.

When did "curating" become a skill possessed by anyone who could shop, edit or make decisions, such as choosing between skimmed and full-cream milk?

Overuse of this word had been registering for a while, but it hadn't made the synaptic leap until an interior designer boasted recently that she'd "curated" the photographs inside a swanky apartment.

Essentially, she had selected half a dozen holiday snaps taken by a friend, hung them on his walls and made a trip to the furniture shop. That made her a curator?

Merriam-Webster offers this definition: "[A curator] is one who has the care and superintendence of something"; The Concise Oxford English Dictionary is marginally more helpful, with its description of a "keeper or custodian of a museum or other collection".

I preferred to be led by instinct, which told me, "I could have done that."