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The Oxford English Dictionary works on an evidence-based approach. If a particular spelling is prevalent among the genuine uses of a word, the OED would list that as the primary spelling, taking into account regional variations such as American versus British spellings. If there is conflicting usage, an editor presumably will chose one as most consistent with normal patterns in English. All of the discussion on this listserv could be fodder for the determination, since the editors routinely use Internet searches and databases to find uses of word. So there is no need to submit the variant spellings individually; they will be considered. As yet there appear to be only 2 independent uses of paleoology and its cognates: the journal article from 2004, and Xavier's announcement of the discussion group, which started this thread. All the uses within the thread are meta-usages, which might influence editors if the evidence of spelling is contradictory, but what will count more is uptake in the professional literature. The OED generally wants at least 6 independent uses of a word with some chronological separation for it to qualify for listing. So Jere, start publishing paleooological papers, if that is the spelling you want to prevail. You'll have to get the spellings past the journal editors too. I've tried to sneak "shellless" into print for three l's in a row, but no editor has yet let it stand; it always becomes "shell-less". It's interesting to contemplate that as scientists describe the world biologically, the etymologists are circumscribing the geographical and chronological distributions of our words. They even have analogs to Lazarus taxa, searching for interdatings as well as first and last occurrences. Gary
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