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www.dictionary.com or http://www.oed.com/ . man schools are turning out some pathetic people nowadays, in the time it took to write your dogturd of a post you could have looked up the definition of bribery and not looked like an idiot.

Maybe you should look up what pseudoscience is?

Okay, here is the definition:

pseudoscience: a collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method

Where in the name of Zombie Feinman's ghost did you get that definition.

Wikipedia describes it as:
Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that are claimed to be both scientific and factual, but are incompatible with the scientific method.

The OED defines it as:
"1. As a count noun: a spurious or pretended science; a branch of knowledge or a system of beliefs mistakenly regarded as based on scientific method or having the status of scientific truth."
"2. As a mass noun: spurious or pretended science; study or research that is claimed as scientific but is not generally accepted as such. Chiefly derogatory."

Pseudoscience is the technical name for quackery, colloquially it is used to mock things that pretend to be scientific but actually have no basis in science.

Who modded that tripe up and have you taken your watered down snake oil today?

To be fair, Literally (1c) doesn't have to be literal any more.

"The hoi polloi" is like saying "the La Brea tar pits" or "The big Rio Grande river".

Merriam Webster: "Even though hoi itself means "the", in English we almost always say "the hoi polloi". Or Oxford Dictionaries: "This knowledge has led some traditionalists to insist that hoi polloi should not be used in English with the, since that would be to state the word the twice. Such arguments miss the point: once established in English, expressions such as hoi polloi are treated as a fixed unit and are subject to the rules and conventions of English." Or even the venerable OED itself: "In English use normally preceded by the def. article even though hoi means ‘the’."

It's interesting that you saw a paragraph about intellectual elites finding things by which they can look down upon others, and your response is to post something that makes you appear intellectual and discriminating, but has no basis in reality.

Or, as some people spell the word, a kludge.

Also known as literate people.

So, some random site decided to grab the URL of "oxford dictionaries", I assume to mislead people into thinking that this is the Oxford English Dictionary

Don't slashdotters know about the Jargon File anymore? (here or here or here.) It's sad how classic hacker history is so quickly forgotten.

http://www.catb.org/jargon/htm... : kludge

  1. /kluhj/ n. Incorrect (though regrettably common) spelling of kluge (US). These two words have been confused in American usage since the early 1960s, and widely confounded in Great Britain since the end of World War II.

In English, the soft "g" is pronounced as if it has a "d" in front of it. Kluge rhymes with huge. Kludge, on the other hand, would rhyme with sludge or judge.

Probably because "sweary" is not a real word

Oh, really?

It offers:

A person who is not a member of a specified profession or group.

with the first usage from 1946

http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/... (probably paywalled)

"satellite, n. 2.a. small or secondary planet that revolves around a larger one."
-see http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/...

OED lists it as a word. I have no idea if either of these will work:
http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/...
http://www.oed.com/search?sear...

Err... You need a "library card" for that. Maybe. They're easy to "hack."

Impuled:
Etymology: < impulse n. or < Latin impuls- , participial stem of impellre to impel v.; compare obsolete French impulser.

    trans. To give an impulse to; to impel; to instigate. Also intr.

Citation:
"impulse, v.". OED Online. December 2015. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/... (accessed March 07, 2016).

Note the citation says 'impulse' but look at the URL. It hasn't been updated since 1869. According to their little image, it's not a frequently used word. I did have to poke at the formatting. Slashdot ate some of it. It also made me use HTML entities for < characters. Mouse over the URL and you'll see it. If you want, hack an OED account and have all the access you want. (I don't know my library card number, so I am some guy out of Surrey. At least OED thinks I am.)

OED lists it as a word. I have no idea if either of these will work:
http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/...
http://www.oed.com/search?sear...

Err... You need a "library card" for that. Maybe. They're easy to "hack."

Impuled:
Etymology: < impulse n. or < Latin impuls- , participial stem of impellre to impel v.; compare obsolete French impulser.

    trans. To give an impulse to; to impel; to instigate. Also intr.

Citation:
"impulse, v.". OED Online. December 2015. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/... (accessed March 07, 2016).

Note the citation says 'impulse' but look at the URL. It hasn't been updated since 1869. According to their little image, it's not a frequently used word. I did have to poke at the formatting. Slashdot ate some of it. It also made me use HTML entities for < characters. Mouse over the URL and you'll see it. If you want, hack an OED account and have all the access you want. (I don't know my library card number, so I am some guy out of Surrey. At least OED thinks I am.)

OED lists it as a word. I have no idea if either of these will work:
http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/...
http://www.oed.com/search?sear...

Err... You need a "library card" for that. Maybe. They're easy to "hack."

Impuled:
Etymology: < impulse n. or < Latin impuls- , participial stem of impellre to impel v.; compare obsolete French impulser.

    trans. To give an impulse to; to impel; to instigate. Also intr.

Citation:
"impulse, v.". OED Online. December 2015. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/... (accessed March 07, 2016).

Note the citation says 'impulse' but look at the URL. It hasn't been updated since 1869. According to their little image, it's not a frequently used word. I did have to poke at the formatting. Slashdot ate some of it. It also made me use HTML entities for < characters. Mouse over the URL and you'll see it. If you want, hack an OED account and have all the access you want. (I don't know my library card number, so I am some guy out of Surrey. At least OED thinks I am.)

Decades ago. Many many decades ago.

The problem is people keep clinging to an archaic definition which is really only applicable in very specific contexts, and ignoring that an entirely separate expression has also sprung up around it.

So in the context of logic and debate someone can still be "begging the question".

Likewise, if you say "We discovered this weekend Jane is allergic to eating poop". That pretty much begs ("for someone to ask") the question of "what the hell was Jane doing eating poop?"

Trust me, if shizzle is now a word ... all you people fixated on this stupid thing about "begs the question" need to get the fuck over your own shizzle and accept that language, especially English, is a thing which changes over time.

The modern usage of "begs the question" has been in print for a very long time. It just happens to be close enough to another expression that the pedants get their knickers in a twist ... because pedants like to exhibit pedantry.

I think you should direct complaints here.

The Oxford English Dictionary says that your pronunciation is the primary British one, and his the only American one.

And Shakespeare came so very close to doing so:

HAMLET [...] we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table; that's the end.

POINS [Henry IV, part 1] .... there are pilgrims going to Canterbury with rich offerings and traders riding to London with fat purses.

As a matter of fact, the Oxford English Dictionary says that Barclay wins the honor for using fatly first.

Some beast agayne, styll leane and poore is sene Though it fatly fare, within a medowe grene.

Magnificent thing, the English language, so fatly adorned with so many words.

a Fiesta is clearly not an F150. One is a fucking hatchback, the other is a fucking muscle car.

Exactly!

oxforddictionaries.com is as much the OED ...

... as a Fiesta is an F-150. That's the point

They are produced by the same company, one is a feather-weight dictionary and one is the mother-of-all dictionaries.

... paper version.

The OED comes in 4 formats that I can think of off the top of my head: 20 (+3 addendum) volume paper, CD-ROM, online, and single volume microprint.

If you think it's not, tell the people that fucking publish it.

It's not. And I hardly need to tell the people who publish it that, they already know. Obviously! Nor am I going to tell Ford that a Fiesta is not an F-150.

Now calm down, have a look at the same entry in those two vastly different dictionaries, and learn something!

uh...

As I wrote "I suppose another Oxford UP product" ... it very clearly is not the OED though. No more than my New Shorter OED is the OED ... yeah?

I mean look at the definition in the link and compare it to the tiny snippet of the OED entry which I reproduced here (or to the full OED entry if you can access it). Oxford produce enough different dictionaries to fill most peoples bookshelves.

Quick car analogy: To refer to www.oxforddictionaries.com as "the OED," is like referring to a Fiesta as an "F-150." It does indeed seem to be the legitimate Ford Motor Company that makes both.

Languages evolve. Deal with it.

Yet, the Oxford English Dictionary would quite clearly disagree with your statement and endorse it as a verb: http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/...

Not to mention it is in common use and hence is correct usage by definition ...

Should be descriptive, like say.. Lync?

The minimum requirement for a descriptive name is that it should be an actual word.

http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/...

Reputable enough for you, you absurd human being?

I really wish the British would learn the differences between a pedophile, child pornographer and child molester already. And that being a pedophile is not a crime.

Another Yank without a clue. "Child molesting" is rape, and is a crime. Possession or creation of "child pornography" (i.e. portrayals of child rape) is a less serious crime, but quite rightly still a crime.

Simply being a paedophile and not acting on it is no more illegal than being a Holocaust denier or goat-fucker.

I love insane people they make me laugh. However, they are a danger to themselves and others so I generally avoid them. Being a pedophile IS a crime. By definition: http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/...

pedophile pedfl/ noun noun: paedophile; plural noun: paedophiles; noun: pedophile; plural noun: pedophiles a person who is sexually attracted to children.

Is that British enough for you? How ever here is something you don't grasp. It is virtually impossibly for people afflicted with this mental disorder ( http://focus.psychiatryonline.... ) to NOT molest children. Either they rape them or they force them to engage in sexual acts with each other, or they trade in the movies and photographs of others who have done so. For example Steven Collins has admitted to being a pedophile because he exposed himself to a child. Sadly, the statute of limitations for his child molestation crime as ran out in NY state, he cannot be charged. Nevertheless, he acts on his impulses. Oh and being a Holocaust denier or goat-fucker are also illegal. The second is bestiality, the first is a crime is Germany and Israel. It is the only that isnt a crime here because it falls under free speech and has nothing to do with sex. So to be succinct: Pedophile = child molester. Child molester = Child pornographer, They are the three sides to the same evil triangle.

The Oxford English Dictionary recognizes the phrase as a US colloquialism. Instead of getting all bent out of shape over informal language, maybe you should suck it up and get behind it's usage.

As in OED definition 1a,b, in the sense of a "step" on a scale --- each "degree" is one of 100 steps on the (somewhat arbitrarily chosen) scale between the freezing and boiling points of water (at standard pressure).

A brief saunter through the Oxford English Dictionary http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/161944?redirectedFrom=religion#eid seems to support your definition of 'religion' as having rites and worship associated with it. I guess it's more accurate to describe atheism as a 'personal belief' or 'faith'; thanks for making the point. And thanks for reminding me that the agnostic who lives as though there is no god is showing a faith in there not being one, and is, actually, therefore a 'weak atheist' rather than an agnostic; a true agnostic should probably try to propitiate ALL the gods anyone has ever reported!

That's not the OED definition. This is the OED definition:

1. a. A book which explains or translates, usually in alphabetical order, the words of a language or languages (or of a particular category of vocabulary) ...

"Particular category of vocabulary" is understood to include phrases.

Be in contradiction with. That is the second definition in TheSage.

So... Hmm... ...its relative presence everywhere and ease of is in contradiction with what the Ethernet has done for the networking industry...

Maybe the author is trying to convey that many things tech related are complicated and difficult and thus this is surprisingly easy and effective?

I'm not entirely sure, I'm not the author of course, but I agree that it is awkward as all hell. I'm thinking the above parsing may be what was intended.

Hmm... Indeed.

OED has this as the third verb use:

a. to belie the truth : to misrepresent or pervert the truth. Obs.
b. To give a false representation or account of, to misrepresent; to be misleading with regard to. Also: to be at variance or incompatible with. Also intr. (obs. rare).

So, yeah, it's a rather unusual sentence but with some twisting and imagination I guess we can probably make it work as the author intended.

-----

"belie, v.2". OED Online. March 2013. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/17366?rskey=LvhK03&result=1 (accessed May 23, 2013).

Given the office I'm sitting in and the job I do this is a question I encounter from time to time. I can't comment on pricing for obvious reasons, but I can offer an alternative that may help some of you.
Many public libraries purchase OED Online subscriptions which they make available to their users for free. All you need is your library card number to log in and use it as much as you like. In addition most educational institutions have site licences for use by their people in the same way. It may not help you if your library or institution doesn't have a subscription, but it's worth a look. http://public.oed.com/how-to-subscribe/does-my-library-subscribe/

The list of 49 words is available by querying oed.com, e.g. http://www.oed.com/search?case-insensitive=true&f_0=-+Quotation+Title&nearDistance=1&ordered=false&q_0=Meanderings+of+Memory&scope=ENTRY

Anyway, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, both pronunciations are valid, the hard g being preferred in the USA. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/267439?rskey=uvtY4B&result=1#eid

ah crap, I fell for it to. Here is the ACTUAL OED sit:
http://www.oed.com/

"scam, dangerous cult, organized crime -- but one thing it is not is a religion."

None of those singly or in combination exclude religion.

Cults are merely less-popular religions.

Stop defending religion. Superstition is indefensible in modern times.
Either prove your Sky Fairie (if you have one) exists and I'll recant and grovel before his/her/its Noodly Appendage, or drop the nonsense.

"Scientology is not a religion by any reasonable definition of the term."

Have some Oxford English Dictionary definitions, many of which fit Scientology:

http://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/161944

Anyone that has played Scrabble (especially against a computer) know that there's tons of words out there that no one has ever heard of, most of which you can't even find a definition for.

Look in the Oxford English Dictionary or OED. The full edition has more than 600,000 definitions in 20 volumes. It takes all that space giving the etymology, historical formation, or origins of words. I found my spelling of time as "tyme" in the OED.

What the hell is a Qi? I don't know, but I can get 66 points for it

"Qi" is one of the alternate spellings for the Asian word for the circulating life energy in all living things. Other spellings are "chi" and "ki".

Falcon

Just thought I'd mention it. "Aging" is not a word in the English dictionary.

If you say so.

Try again. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/163627?redirectedFrom=resilver#eid

Since the OED lexicographers are over an office divider from where I am sitting I guess I'm in a good position to answer this.

The most important point to make about modern dictionaries is that they are descriptive not prescriptive. That is to say that they describe the language as it evolves rather than tell you how you should use it. Lexicographers are like scientists though they do not generally consider themselves as such, everything they include in their dictionaries has made it there through painstaking linguistic research.

Please believe me when I tell you that my lexicographer colleagues have no interest in being 'hip'. Trust me on this one, I see them walk past my desk every day. Instead they are passionately interested in language and when a word has amassed enough evidence of usage in modern English they include it in their modern English dictionaries. Evidence of sufficiently common usage to be considered to have entered the language is their only value judgement.

It is also worth spelling out the differences between the different Oxford dictionaries. The OED is a massive multi-volume historical dictionary based on human research. You would use it to find the etymologies of words over a milennium. The Oxford Dictionary of English and the Concise Oxford English Dictionary however are corpus based dictionaries, they are derived from computational analysis of a billion-plus word corpus of contemporary English. That kind of stuff should be right up the average Slashdotter's street. Thus words like 'woot' and 'leet' (The lexicographers are funny about numbers in words, don't blame me) will not have been selected for trendiness but because the corpus analysis tells us people are using them.

The multi-volume book sells rather well as it happens. Not to many individuals but there are a lot of schools, universities and libraries in the world. And yes, we do have two dictionary websites. But as to a desperate attempt to stay profitable, the OED itself is not likely ever to do that. It took decades to produce its first edition, decades more for the second. We are a publishing company that is also a not-for-profit department of a major university so the OED is a project created for its academic value rather than its monetary return.

Since you're not reading Snopes, maybe this will convince you a bit more easily. Unless you don't think the OED research their words thoroughly. (If you do, you're wrong.)

http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/50773?rskey=rXfMTJ&result=1#eid

What a load of rubbish. The Oxford English Dictionary actually says this about LOL:
Pronunciation: Brit. /ll/ , /ll/ , U.S. /lol/ , /ll/
Forms: 19– LOL, 19– lol.
Etymology: Initialism

The first L of LOL is sometimes also explained as the initial letter of laugh.
(Show Less)
colloq.
A. int.
Categories


Originally and chiefly in the language of electronic communications: ‘ha ha!’; used to draw attention to a joke or humorous statement, or to express amusement.
1990 Jargon File Draft, part 4 of 4 in comp.misc (Usenet newsgroup) 13 June, LOLlaughing out loud.
1993 Re: Walking out of Movies in bit.listserv.cinema-l (Usenet newsgroup) 3 Aug., LOL. Damn, that's even worse. Ba Ha Ha Ha ha ha!
2002 What Mobile Apr. 23/3 (heading) Wan2 go on a d8 2nite? LOL. Everyone flirts, but will people really do it on their mobiles?
2003 K. Sampson Freshers 100 ‘Wow, man! Are you, like, really from a council estate?’ ‘Yep.’ ‘Lol! Awesome.’
2006 J. Dibbell Play Money xxiv. 170 There was a pause, then finally: lol. i know what ur hintin at.


Source: http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/291168?rskey=SR4Uoy&result=2&isAdvanced=false#eid

also: Barnard's star, couch surf, dot-bomb, drill-down, ego-surf, RSA, and tinfoil hat

See also: http://www.oed.com/public/latest/latest-update/

In a democracy, "the people" vote on everything.

That's plainly false (which is the crux of the problem), and my reference is any English dictionary closest to you. E.g. from OED:

Government by the people; that form of government in which the sovereign power resides in the people as a whole, and is exercised either directly by them (as in the small republics of antiquity) or by officers elected by them.

  A state or community in which the government is vested in the people as a whole.

In Modern English, what you describe is called "direct democracy". Plain unqualified "democracy" is an umbrella term for all kind of democracies, including "representative democracy". A subset of the latter is a "democratic republic".

Well, try the definition from the OED (temporary link):

PC n. (also pc) personal computer; spec. one that is IBM-compatible.

Dictionaries and the like do NOT define what words mean

Indeed, the best dictionaries show how they are used.

Trademark law can get pretty ridiculous
Example: some US company trademarked the term "sugercraft" somehow despite it being a commonly used term for an entire profession (imagine if some company trademarked "programming") and sends similar letters to companies which use the term.

I mean how do you manage to trademark the term for an industry? One which is already in the dictionary as a generic term?
http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50241744/50241744se219?single=1&query_type=word&queryword=sugarcraft&first=1&max_to_show=10&hilite=50241744se219

Cretin has nothing to do with Crete.

Not according to the OED: http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50261136?query_type=word&queryword=tyre&first=1&max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&result_place=7&search_id=kEJT-MMENth-4778&hilite=50261136

$295 is a bargain. It's £750 if you buy it (all 20 volumes) in print! Or £4000 for the leather-bound one.

Sample page (PDF). It's really not concise, but then it's not supposed to be.

... the websites for long-standing print dictionaries are still the best.

Oxford English Dictionary is considered the authoritative standard for the English Language.
If you or your employer/university don't have an OED online subscription, Merriam-Webster will do in a pinch.

The O.E.D. is intended to be descriptive, not prescriptive.

http://www.oed.com/subscribe/
 

"Druggie" is not a word, so I am not certain how you are correcting its spelling.

Well, several dictionaries do not agree with you.

Here is the entry from dictionary.com -- note that according to the Random House entry, "druggy" is an acceptable alternate spelling, contrary to the GP. The Merriam-Webster entry also indicates "druggy" as a variant spelling.

Here is the entry from the Oxford English Dictionary, widely considered to be authoritative on all dialects of the English language.

So, the GP may have been wrong for taking you (or whoever) to task for the "druggy" spelling, but you are most certainly wrong that it is not a word. Next time, do a little research. A slang term that has entered common use is still a word, regardless of its origins.

Also, the GP was very much right for calling out the hate speech for what it was.