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For the record: electrocute.

The OED (a British dictionary, I believe) says otherwise.

http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/display/50002101?keytype=ref&ijkey=BW.ifJFCYzhE6

It also says it's an American coinage.

Grammar isn't taught in English class, its taught in Latin class. Frankly, I don't think I've ever met anyone who didn't take Latin that knew the difference between who and whom... except old people. And most of them probably learned Latin in church.

Though it was a long tyme ago and I don't recall a lot of it, grammar was taught when I took English.

Other's have said it and you may too, so I'll it say now. The way I spell time as "tyme" is correct. In high school I loved taking the "Oxford English Dictionary", OED, off the shelf in the school library and read it. I came across that spelling, which is an Old English spelling, and loved it. The next tyme I used the spelling in English my teacher marked it wrong, so I dragged her down to the library and showed her the spelling. After that she started checking the OED herself when she came across a spelling I used that she didn't know. I've used it since.

Falcon

Author has been a verb (and a noun) since at least 1596 (oed).

Even in the link you post, the notion that octothorpe is a spoof is disputed. I've linked in a previous discussion to a different source who suggests that it is a cartographical term, although they don't back it up other than to say they've seen maps using the octothorpe symbol.

The Complete Oxford English Dictionary (http://dictionary.oed.com/, but it's subscription only) says the coimage was "apparently" playful, and lists the earliest usage as being in 1974. If your friends have seen an earlier use of the term, the OED would like to hear of it. On the other hand, if they've just seen the symbol (as you say) then it tells us nothing about what the ancient cartographers called it. Probably "One of those itsy tic-tac-toe doohickeys".

It also means to pass over or overlook, see the Oxford English Dictionary. According to them this meaning dates from circa 1000 AD so perhaps you might want to update your knowledge of English a little?

So when did you learn the thousands apon thousands of Kunji required to read traditional Chinese?

Do you mean kanji, which is a Japanese rendition? "Chinese characters are conventionally called ideographs or ideograms". As for how many are needed to understand written Chinese, though there are more the 60,000 ideograms which represent words or concepts the average Chinese gets by knowing only about 3000. To tell the truth though there's not many ideograms compared to the number of English words, I've got two dictionaries and the smaller one has more than 100,000 entries. The last tyme I looked the full edition of the "Oxford English Dictionary" had more than 20 printed volumes. Oops, here's one listing from Amazon of the OED with 20 volumes. And those aren't pocket dictionaries. Now, how many native English speakers know even 1% of the words?

Falcon

According to the OED, both spellings were used, though the omega spelling was more common. From the assumption that the alpha spelling is the only "real Greek" spelling, you build a complicated argument that contradicts a lot what I know about social and linguistic history. I'm hardly on expert, but it's obvious you aren't either.

I could attempt to correct you on several points, not just the history you've got wrong, but the way you keep misrepresenting what I've said. But would it penetrate? Obviously not.

So I'll just repeat the central argument that you find it convenient to ignore: the Romans spelled Greek loanwords with a kappa using K , not C. This is not my pet theory, this is widely accepted as the way the letter K was invented. So if "octopus" had come by way of Latin, it would be spelled with a K.

This is the key detail of my argument. You haven't refuted it. You haven't even contradicted it.

If you're just going to ignore my arguments, please take your insults and your poorly informed theories and go bother somebody else.

Stop arguing in bad faith.

Badda-bing!

Are you just resorting to throwing nonsense at me now? My point about you arguing in bad faith was valid, a nonsense word in response is meaningless.

I wasn't cherry-picking, that definition is the only one the OED contains

Lol! You must have the abridged version.

No, I have a subscription to the full thing. Feel free to pay the subscription fee and check it out yourself. That's exactly what it says. You get historical quotations and the like too, but no other definitions.

So do you concede that I wasn't cherry-picking?

Gee, the state of being free from unsanctioned intrusion goes away when you are in a public area? Papers please!

What part of "unsanctioned" don't you understand?

You keep on saying that, but even your own cherry-picked dictionary definitions disagree binary boy.

Another case of you saying black is white. The definitions are there for everybody to see. Saying that they disagree with me is plainly wrong.

They are ALL privacy concerns.

Saying so doesn't make it true.

To take the simplest and most obvious case - photo releases are NOT required of public figures because they are considered to have given up that expectation of privacy by virtue of becoming public figures, but they are required for regular joes who have not given up that right simply by being in a public space.

That's certainly not true in the UK. The reason why photo releases aren't required of public figures is because journalists have the right to report on matters of public interest. Some random non-celebrity walking down the street isn't in the public interest. It has nothing to do with privacy.

misread definitions, misunderstand public policy

How difficult is this for you to understand? Saying something isn't enough. You need to explain why you think something. Calling me names and saying that I am wrong and stupid over and over again is useless. You think I've misread definitions? Explain why you think so. Don't just say so.

repeat the simplistic ideas of the sheep who haven't bothered to give it a critical thought

Care to point out where you have seen these ideas expressed anywhere else? I certainly haven't see them discussed anywhere.

Useful idiots like yourself only serve to reinforce the propaganda of the war on privacy.

How? No seriously, how?

Before you answer that, please read back over the thread and point out where I have supported infringements of what you call "privacy". Oh wait. I'm against those too. I just think it's fucking stupid to alienate people who would otherwise support our cause by pretending that it has something to do with their privacy. You are apparently reading "This isn't anything to do with privacy" as "This is a good thing". You get an F for reading comprehension.

(Emphasis mine)

It's was an invention in the 16th century in England and that spelling lasted until the 19th century

(Source: OED, http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50122404)

No, it isn't. I'm not familiar with the particular quote, but co-worker > coworker is a common grammatical contraction, such as "it's" (it belongs to) becoming its, or 'phone > phone, or a million other things.

The Dictionary of the Scots Language and Oxford English Dictionary, probably the two best resources on the etymology of the language of England and Scotland have no record of that construction or word. I've definitely never heard it here.

I know it's a joke, but these types of 'word histories' are usually bollocks that actually dilute our understanding of where words really come from.

(Yes, I am an English major, and I live in Aberdeen, Scotland)

When referring to politics as a discipline, the word can be treated as a singular noun, or plural depending upon the context. Historically, it was also appropriate to use plural in all contexts.

Oxford and Webster both agree with me.

Electrocute means to kill by electricity, not to receive an electric shock.

from OED
To put to death by means of a powerful electric current.
To kill in any way by electricity
http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50073016?single=1&query_type=word&queryword=electrocute&first=1&max_to_show=10/

It seems like just recently I'm seeing a lot of people here write "tyme" instead of "time". Or maybe it's just Falcon over and over again, I don't know (no offense Falcon). Is this the new "loose"?

That I know of I've the only one that uses the spelling of "time" as "tyme". And it's not new, it's an Old English spelling. The first tyme I saw it was in the latter 1970s in volume 20 of 20 something volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary, OED . I've used that spelling since. I've also had to drag teachers and profs to the library or copy the page with that spelling to show them it was correct when they marked my spelling as wrong.

"Lets just call them plain thieves as the term 'identity theft' is just something invented by the banks to blame us for when their money get stolen."

I wouldn't say that.

However someone else doesn't like the phrase.

"Lets just call them plain thieves as the term 'identity theft' is just something invented by the banks to blame us for when their money get stolen."

I wouldn't say that.

However someone else doesn't like the phrase.

The verb is whacked.

So that's why it's not there!

I have to say that, between the chief editor and the copy editor, I learned that my spelling and grammar are not nearly as good as I thought they were.

I used to get comments about my spelling, that it was wrong. I'd come back saying it's not wrong but unusual for American English. For instance I spell "time" with a "y", "tyme". Back when I was in high school I liked to go to the library and leaf or read through the Oxford English Dictionary, OED . One day I came across the spelling of time as "tyme". Thereafter I used that spelling. In a writing class, I don't recall if it was composition or American Lit, I used that spelling on an assignment and when I got the paper back my teacher had marked it wrong and took off points. So I practically dragged her to the library and showed her "time" spelled that way. After that she got into the habit of checking the OED to see if it had a word spelled the way I spelled it. I haven't been able to find a dictionary with it spelled that way since, but then again the OED I used had 20something volumn edition, it wasn't just one book.

vrouw, vrow
Also 7 vroa, 20 vrou. [Du. and Flem. vrouw (cf. FROW n.) = G. frau woman, wife, FRAU.]
A (Dutch) woman, matron, goodwife. spec. in S. Afr.

1824 J. PATERSON in Harp Renfrew. Ser. II. (1873) 108 Till the riflemen.. raised a din..Which nearly deprived the fair vrows of their breath.

If you look up "ultimate" in the dictionary, you'll see it actually means "final". Since there will clearly never, ever be another client-side application platform ever again, "ultimate" seems appropriate.

What are you looking at me like that for?

OK, OK. AJAX is the penultimate client-side platform. Happy now?

Hmmm... FWIW, the online Oxford English Dictionary also has this definition:

flag, v.
1. To hang down; to flap about loosely.
2. To become limp or flaccid. Now only of plants: To droop, fade
3. Of wings: To move feebly or ineffectually in attempting to fly. Of a bird: To move its wings feebly (in early use also trans. with wings as obj.); to fly unsteadily or near the ground. Obs.
4. To become feeble or unsteady in flight. Hence in wider sense (in early use perh. consciously transf.): To be unable to maintain one's speed; to lag, or fall into a halting pace, through fatigue; to become languid, lose vigour or energy.

http://dictionary.oed.com/ if you want a real dictionary, not that MS stuff, or the joke known as Encarta, or definitions by committe. Yes, it has pluton: An intrusive body of igneous rock formed beneath the earth's surface, esp. a large one.

I'm sorry but water is not a beverage.

from Dictionary.com
Beverage
        Any one of various liquids for drinking, usually excluding water.

from the Compact Oxford English Dictionary
Beverage
  noun a drink other than water.

From OED.
Beverage
1. Drink, liquor for drinking; esp. a liquor which constitutes a common article of consumption.
2. A 'draught' which has been brewed, and must be drunk...

neither time nor thyme.

Actually the spelling of "time" as I spell it, "tyme", is Old English. I came across the spelling years ago when I was in high school, I found it in the full edition of the "Oxford English Dictionary" and have used it since. Actually the first tyme I used it for a writing class the teacher took off points for what she said was a spelling err, so I dragged her down to the library and showed her the spelling in the OED. After that she got in the habit of checking the dictionary everytime I spelled a word differently than normal.

I love and grow herbs and used to hangout with others that did too and some of them suggested I use the spelling "thyme" as well. I've thought of it but it has a totally different meaning, while I sometimes spell words differently than "normal" I still use correct spelling for a meaning. As with "color", I use "colour". Since I ran into the OED I've been interested in etymology.

Merriam Websters:
censorship Noun 1 a : the institution, system, or practice of censoring
censor Transitive Verb to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable

American Heritage:
censorship Noun: 1. The act, process, or practice of censoring.
censor Transitive Verb: To examine and expurgate.

Oxford English Dictionary: [subscription required]
censorship n. 2. a. The office or function of a censor; official supervision.
censor n. 2. a. One who exercises official or officious supervision over morals and conduct.
censor v. trans. To act as censor to

Merriam Websters:
censorship Noun 1 a : the institution, system, or practice of censoring
censor Transitive Verb to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable

American Heritage:
censorship Noun: 1. The act, process, or practice of censoring.
censor Transitive Verb: To examine and expurgate.

Oxford English Dictionary: [subscription required]
censorship n. 2. a. The office or function of a censor; official supervision.
censor n. 2. a. One who exercises official or officious supervision over morals and conduct.
censor v. trans. To act as censor to

Merriam Websters:
censorship Noun 1 a : the institution, system, or practice of censoring
censor Transitive Verb to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable

American Heritage:
censorship Noun: 1. The act, process, or practice of censoring.
censor Transitive Verb: To examine and expurgate.

Oxford English Dictionary: [subscription required]
censorship n. 2. a. The office or function of a censor; official supervision.
censor n. 2. a. One who exercises official or officious supervision over morals and conduct.
censor v. trans. To act as censor to

Considering that Sisyphusean isn't a real word, but Sisyphean is, I think he may have got the spelling right.

(links go to answers.com, but the OED agrees)

Evil, pure and simple.

We are sorry, but the entry you have selected is not currently available as part of the OED Online free access service. The full Dictionary will be searchable again for 48 hours after the next programme in the BBC series Balderdash and Piffle. Please see http://www.oed.com/bbcwords/about.html for details.

In the meantime, you may continue searching for words beginning with the letters featured in the programmes to date.

If you would like to purchase a personal subscription to OED Online please go to http://www.oed.com/subscribe/individuals-rw.html. Prices start from as little as £8.80 for a week.

Alternatively, the full Oxford English Dictionary may be available via your public library, including an option for remote access at home. Please ask your local librarian for details.

Nice little bait and... advertise.

Evil, pure and simple.

We are sorry, but the entry you have selected is not currently available as part of the OED Online free access service. The full Dictionary will be searchable again for 48 hours after the next programme in the BBC series Balderdash and Piffle. Please see http://www.oed.com/bbcwords/about.html for details.

In the meantime, you may continue searching for words beginning with the letters featured in the programmes to date.

If you would like to purchase a personal subscription to OED Online please go to http://www.oed.com/subscribe/individuals-rw.html. Prices start from as little as £8.80 for a week.

Alternatively, the full Oxford English Dictionary may be available via your public library, including an option for remote access at home. Please ask your local librarian for details.

Nice little bait and... advertise.

OED requires payment to access. Hell, they want $30/month for access to a freaking dictionary! http://www.oed.com/subscribe/individuals-amer.html

I guess they've got leverage.

Howeever, according to the last Slashdot groupthink good vs. evil pamplet I received, information wants to be free, so OED must be evil, and therefore wrong.

And when the OED adds the transitive verb accepted use definition which you understood but chose to be pedantic about, will Smoot be retroactively correct?

According to the OED, it is a verb, not that it's not still a horrible abuse of English.

The only dictionary that matters lists leverage as a noun. Any other usage is incorrect.

No, you're going down your own line of trying to cherry-pick a carefully engineered definition "ethic" and "moral" to suit your own circular argument, and you're even attempting to redefine "emotional" to try to cover your back where several things obviously do not fit. ("Emotional issues" means "issues that tend to stir up people's emotions" but does not mean that a person's stance on the issue depends on their emotional state at the time you ask the question). For example, in order to support your assertion [actually the OP's] that morals only evolve and are unaffected by religious affiliation, you have attempted to define "moral" as requiring a "general consensus [across all of society], not something that is imposed by one part of society on an equally large but dissident portion" and are attempting to use your own artificial re-definition of the word to define out morals influenced by religion on the grounds that members of other religions do not have the same ones. That is circular. A reasonable person would describe the two sections of the community as having differing moral stances on the issue. For you're next step, you'll define cats as "felines without tails" and use this to show that only the manx species is a cat because all others have tails!

To provide some external backing for my comment about your attempt to cherry-pick a favoured definition of moral and ethic just in case you don't believe me (and to save you the trouble of hunting for a favourable definition in a random dictionary), let's do a quick online lookup in the Oxford English Dictionary http://www.oed.com/. We get definitions of "ethic" which include:
"The moral principles by which a person is guided.",
"Relating to morals.".
(and about a dozen others including references to their first documented usages)

Similarly, "moral" gives us entries including:
"Thought and discourse about moral questions; moral philosophy, ethics. Also occas. in sing. Cf. MORALITY n. 7a. Now arch. and hist."
"In pl. (earlier in sing.). Originally: the title of St Gregory the Great's moral exposition of the biblical Book of Job. Later also: the collective title given to Plutarch's writings other than the 'Lives', to the ethical writings of Seneca, etc. Now rare."
(again plus a dozen others)

And you will notice there is no such artificially inserted distinction to try to save your argument. Indeed not only is ethic used as a synonym for morals, but moral is also used for thought and discourse which you would attempt to define as only being ethics. There is an entry for ethics as a subject of science - the academic study of ethics - as I used it, but not one that would help you.

You can even help the Oxford English Dictionary find new words.

My favorite is to bonk. Slashdot is on the cutting edge of language change - some things will not stick, but many will.

You can even help the Oxford English Dictionary find new words.

My favorite is to bonk. Slashdot is on the cutting edge of language change - some things will not stick, but many will.

In the Conversational Norwegian short of Freakazoid, we learn that "narkval" is Norwegian for narwhale.

"Lykkkelig liten narkval" -> Happy little narwhale

Then again, the OED lists it as "narwhal"... but who is /. going to believe?

Yes it is.

OED is not open, but you can read an example in their Word of the Day. I find its structure somewhat hierarchical, though.

Why did you write Judeo-Christian instead of Jewish and Christian?

I used "Judeo-Christian" because Christianity is based on Judism. Jews believed a Savior or Messiah come to redeem believers. When Jesus, who was Jewish, was supposedly born some took him as the Messiah. They then took what he taught and started the Christian religion. So, I used Judeo-Christian because Christianity got it's start in Judaism.

Perhaps I should explain why I said "supposedly born" above. I used it because I don't believe or know if such a person was born. I am agnostic, "a", without and "gnosis" knowledge, I don't possess the knowledge on whether a soul or spirit exists and if there's life after death and I'm jealous of those who have faith.

As for when I said "most Judeo-Christian holidays, sacred days, and celibrations have pagan or Zoroastan roots", admittedly I was overbroad. Perhaps it would of been more accurate to say some Christian holidays may of come from previous beliefs such as pagan beliefs and some early churchs were built on sites that were spiritually significant to those who were there before. My use of "pagan" was also broad encompassing pantheism and polytheism such as wicca, and others. It was a poor choice of words, I used it as a shortcut or way to cut words out. But I've gotten comments from others saying less words are better, that using a lot of words leads to confusion (like I'm doing now?) and I didn't expect many ./ers to have much knowledge on the subject.

My OED dates its use to 1899

Ooh, what edition of the OED do you have? I'd love to get the full 20 volumn edition of the OED.

And I hope I didn't cause any discomfort, I didn't mean to, I sometimes "shoot from the hips". Your post I found well formed and I need to work making all of mine the same. Because of an injury I suffered, I'm a TBI, Traumatic Brain Injury survivor, amoung other things I have poor impulse control.

"Vouche" is correct in British English.

Not as far as I know, and my Oxford doesn't seem to like it either...

I fully agree with you on the point about writing in proper British English, though...

disfunctional is fine.

Your spelling of 'time' as 'tyme' seems rather oldfashioned. Especially with 'sometyme'. Is it a dialect, or what?

"Tyme" is an Old English spelling so in a sense it is old fashioned. I ran into the spelling while in high school, I'd go into the library and would grab one of the 20 something volumns of the OED, Oxford English Dictionary and start reading it. I found the spelling of time as "tyme" in the OED and have used it since. Usually but obviously not always when I use a word with "time" in it as with "sometime" I use the "i".

Funny... that's not in my dictionary...

Stupid Americans... they take a perfectly servicable language and go and corrupt it beyond usefulness... Oh, well, your point is taken; "it's been" is acceptable usage for you guys... I stand corrected...

And I bet you have heard take used in this manner before. It is exactly the same sense as when someone says "I took the idea and ran with it" or "The opening scene of that movie was taken from a book by Asimov". If I had "taken" it dishonestly, someone could say "You stole that idea!" This is all perfectly reasonable English.

But you want another source, so check out the myriad of meanings listed at m-w.com. Definitions 6 and 11 lend themselves to this kind of discussion, the latter probably more relevant.

Whether something is material or immaterial is not relevant to my argument, by the way.

I think it is. The basis of your argument is that theft deprives someone of something by taking it. If it is immaterial (like ideas or digital patterns), then you do not necessarily deprive someone of it when you take it. The definitions show that steal and take does not require deprivation.

I thought "internationalisation" was a term more commonly used in the USA than in the UK. But The Cambridge Dictionary states the term is "internationalization", with "internationalisation" being a UK localism. The Oxford English Dictionary (user login required, BugMeNot is your friend) knows of no "internationalisation", though its references on "internationalization" cite sources both with -z- and -s-. I hope you will agree these two dictionaries' creators know what's spoken in England. Otherwise, please provide your authoritative references.

I think this proves both forms are currently accepted, so we probably should call it a draw. As a native Spanish speaker, I prefer the -z- form, as it looks more like the Spanish internacionalización, but that's my preference.

Can you send me a copy of the official English language handbook? It's called the Oxford English Dictionary, and no, I can't send you one... buy your own!

The OED is - occasionally - used in court to determine the meaning of a word in dispute. See this story from the OED Newsletter which states:

" The courts do use our dictionaries in support of arguments about the commonly accepted meanings of words, but the legal authority comes from the court's decision, not from the dictionary's definition. "

is in the dictionary (subscription required)