Sj wrote:
On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 23:13:56 -0800, Michael Snow
<wikipedia(a)earthlink.net> wrote:
In this article (
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1374741,00.html )
Collins compares its new Living Dictionary - which takes submissions
from users - to Wikipedia.
Maybe this would be a good place to direct the authors of attempted
neologisms that end up getting deleted?
That's a neat article. And a good idea for neologisms... we will need
a good slang dictionary to refer to in ten years once time has
filtered out those that have no permanence.
It seems that Collins' effort is to be snickeringly welcomed. Our
experience with protologisms at Wiktionary has been somewhat Rocky. New
words are being invented with great regularity, but it's no easy task to
distinguish between something that expresses a need and someone's flight
of fancy that is firmly grounded in his illiteracy. The thought of an
established institution having to cope with our friendly POV warriors
brings a smile to my face.
In Wiktionary I seem to have taken on the role of the arch-conservative
by promoting the concept of verifiability. This is every bit as
important as it is in Wikipedia. Collins works from the anchor of an
established dictionary; this makes them better equipped to deal with
some often eccentric neologisms. Our Scylla and Charybdis requires
navigating between potential copyright violations on one side and newly
minted inaccracies on the other.
Ec