claim

   Properly, to claim means to demand recognition of a right. You claim something that you wish to call your own-an inheritance, a lost possession, a piece of land. But increasingly it is used in the sense of assert or contend, as here: "They claim that no one will be misled by the advertisement" (Boston Globe).

   For years authorities decried this looser usage, insisting that we replace claim in such constructions with assert, declare, maintain, contend, or some other less objectionable verb, and for years hardly anyone heeded them. The battle, I think, is now over. Even Fowler, who disliked the looser usage, eventually conceded that "there is no doubt a vigor about claim-a pugnacity almost-that makes such words [as assert, etc.] seem tame by comparison."

   So use the word freely if you wish, but bear in mind that there are occasions when claim is ill advised, as in this headline from a newspaper in Hawaii (cited by Fowler): "Oahu barmaid claims rape." The imputation seems to be that the unfortunate woman has either committed a rape or has taken one as an entitlement. Whichever, the choice of word is regrettable, to say the very least.