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You can try it out on a few natural language sentence diagram applications e.g. http://www.link.cs.cmu.edu/cgi... (though that server seems to be unresponsive at the moment.)

Here's one that hits many of the words listed here.

give or take point get set and mark go for good line plays make the dead run a light roll

The way things have been is not necessarily the way things will continue to be.

Patent troll

A person, company, etc. that holds and enforces patents in an aggressive and opportunistic manner , often with no intention of marketing or promoting the subject of the patent. (bold is mine)

Patent troll

In pejorative usage, a patent troll is a person or company that attempts to enforce patent rights against accused infringers far beyond the patent's actual value or contribution to the prior art. Patent trolls often do not manufacture products or supply services based upon the patents in question.(bolds are mine)

The point you make is that I shouldn't call them patent trolls because "patent trolls don't actually make products". I copied two definitions (the first two on duckduckgo). They both mention your point, but use the word "often". Often they don't actually use the patents, but sometimes they do.

In The China Study, the authors discuss ways in which nutrition science is riddled with conflict of interest. They say the food industry treats nutrition science as a marketing channel, and is largely able to neutralize negative messages about its products by controlling the direction of research and/or generating conflicting and confusing messages. Meanwhile, for example, some physicians personally seek dietary treatment for cardiovascular disease but still support a medical institution that prefers to recommend surgical intervention.

The term agnotology is an interesting one. Could be a real thing.

Who needs Science when you've got "Sciencyness"?

Totally agree, and it seems that their data is not cross-checked at all:

http://www.wordnik.com/words/internet

        antonyms
        Words with the opposite meaning:
                World Wide Web

WTF ?

I second this notion. I frequently use the define: $searchTerm query with Google.

For example: telivision,
or: Wordnik

Compare the latter to the same search on Wordnik: Wordnik

Bonus: Those Google links are wrapped in TLS, so no one sees the query terms or results in transit. https://www.wordnik.com/ takes you to their developer site...

I second this notion. I frequently use the define: $searchTerm query with Google.

For example: telivision,
or: Wordnik

Compare the latter to the same search on Wordnik: Wordnik

Bonus: Those Google links are wrapped in TLS, so no one sees the query terms or results in transit. https://www.wordnik.com/ takes you to their developer site...

Yes here: http://www.wordnik.com/words/Fascism
and here: http://www.wordnik.com/words/Anti-Semitism

Yes here: http://www.wordnik.com/words/Fascism
and here: http://www.wordnik.com/words/Anti-Semitism

Yes.

Here's the results for 'magic'.

Gee, it sure looks like they're returning random search engine results next to—oh look, a list of opinions as proferred by so-called "linguistic middlemen."

I like how the top example for how 'magic' is used in English isn't even purely English, but a bullet point about features in the Zend framework. I'll make a habit of saying "__magic()" in everyday speech more often!

I think the worst outcome of this is that PHP now somehow has influence on the evolution of a natural language. I do not believe I am alone in feeling terrified by this prospect.

It doesn't detect that telivision is an incorrect spelling because there are so many authoritative examples of that spelling: http://www.wordnik.com/words/telivision

Google seems to do a good job of detecting spelling errors and automatically updating it's dictionary and of course it also shows you websites where that word is used. I don't really see what Wordnik provides.

An excellent way to find the information you're looking for would be to visit the links in the story. Since you seem to have misplaced them, here's another copy for your convenience:

• growing collections of online words
• Wordnik
• Corpus of Contemporary American English

Furthermore, the summary actually contains the text "These sources differ from both conventional dictionary publishers and crowd-sourced efforts like the excellent Wiktionary for their emphasis on avoiding human intervention rather than fostering it."

How did you manage to make your post and miss all of the above?

You don't have enough dictionaries, causing you to suffer from false cognitive closure as well.

http://www.wordnik.com/words/virii

In Latin, "virus" has no plural, the way in English "water" has no plural. It's uncountable.

In English, however, "virus" applies to things that aren't amorphous gooey substance, but are instead computer programs.

Once you've broken one rule by making an uncountable noun refer to a countable thing, there's no reason not to use it to refer to multiple countable things by breaking another rule.

I.e., if the Romans had had computers, and used "virus" to refer to a computer program, they could easily have used "virii" to refer to multiple such computer programs, but they wouldn't for any reason have used "viruses", and probably would have flung you from the Tarpeian Rock for trying to give them a reason.

Unfortunately, I have yet to find a dictionary wherein "literally" is described to mean "metaphorically."

There are notes explaining the usage problem of using "literally" as an intensity modifier, but this is not considered correct usage.

Here even explicitly rejects using "literally" as "metaphorically."

Languages need not be regular to be useful, but a minimum degree of rigor is necessary for them to function (and hence exist). Languages exist to facilitate communication, which they can't do [well or maybe even at all] if words also properly mean opposite things. Definitions may be loose, but not that loose, otherwise no one could understand anyone else.

In the end, it's possible, but unlikely. Thus, citation please.