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back to article Wiki elevated to Oxford English Dictionary

It's official: "wiki" is now a fully-fledged member of the English lexicon, according to the latest update of the online Oxford English Dictionary (OED). OED chief editor John Simpson said in a statement: "Words are included in the dictionary on the basis of the documentary evidence that we have collected about them. A while …

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  1. Alex Taylor

    Spelling

    Am I the only person who finds it vaguely amusing that an article about dictionary entries should erroneously use the word "principle", where it should be "principal"?

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  2. dominic pain

    misplaced pedantry is always funny

    "He was the principal editor of the group" - he was the main editor.

    "He was the principle editor of the group" - he was responsible for maintaining the list of things the group stands for.

    I thank you.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    better than a chav....

    Is it now possible to call someone a "wiki"...

    Someone who endlessly talks about a subject they know nothing about, based on what someone else has said.

    Is being a "wiki" better or worse than a "chav" ?

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not misplaced at all

    The pedantry isn't misplaced at all, there's no such thing as a "princple editor".

    Do you really think the OED employs someone full time to compile a list of princples that they stand for? Does a dictionary even have principles?

    And, lo and behold, El Reg themselves have corrected it to "principal".

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  5. Reuben Thomas

    It's not elevation

    A word making the OED is not news, it's statistics. The OED is no académie-driven Grand Robert, it's a descriptive dictionary; a dictionary of record, if you like. Its authority is scholarly, not prescriptive, and thank goodness; the lack of an « English Academy » is one of the reasons English is such an adaptive and vibrant language. (What a thought: English is run like Wikipedia! Maybe we should all switch to French after all...)

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