Homing in on "honing in"

A lot of linguistic change is down to sheer ignorance - like the fact that disinterested (meaning impartial) is nowadays nearly-always used to mean uninterested (meaning having-no-interest-in) - such that to use the correct meaning is to invite misunderstanding. 

Thus a useful word is lost.

Another more recent such change is to use "honing-in" when meaning "homing-in": as with a heat-seeking missile homing in on the exhaust jet of a bomber.  

I would have thought that it was obvious that homing in - i.e. seeking its home - would be self-explanatory and the obvious usage; whereas the commonest correct common usage of honing, sharpening the edge of a knife (or, more exactly, giving the final touches to an already sharp edge) - was a little quaint, and probably known only to (mostly male) specialists and hobbyists. 

I infer that those who began to use honing in to meaning homing in, until the mistake had displaced the correct; were doing so from a pretentious form of ignorance; rather than from plain dumb ignorance. 

They were using a more obscure word derived from a verb - hone; instead of a common word derived from a noun - home; and that kind of thing is usually motivated by the desire to impress. 

On the plus side; the incorrect use of honing in has not (or not yet) destroyed the possibility of continuing to use the verb honing for its correct purpose - which is a good thing, because it's a useful term!