RE: paleonet Welcome to The Palaeo-oological Discussion Group

["Robert Huber" <robert.huber@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Maybe the paleooologists should start with an wikipedia entry?

> -----Ursprungliche Nachricht-----
> Von: paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk [mailto:paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk]Im
> Auftrag von Gary Rosenberg
> Gesendet: Montag, 18. September 2006 19:15
> An: paleonet@nhm.ac.uk
> Betreff: Re: paleonet Welcome to The Palaeo-oological Discussion Group
> 
> 
> Xavier received a reply from Jeremy Marshall, an editor at the 
> OED (my contact there is Alan Hughes), and forwarded it to me for 
> comment back to the group. I'll let Xavier explain the editor's 
> comments on spelling and meaning of palaeo- compounds if he is so 
> inclined. Regarding admission of words to the dictionary, Mr. 
> Marshall says 
> 
> "As with any new formation, we would not add the word to the 
> Oxford English Dictionary until we had accumulated clear evidence 
> that it had become firmly established in the language, outside 
> the jargon of an immediate circle of specialists."
> 
> In reply to my previous post, Xavier noted that the 
> Palaeo-oological Discussion Group was "founded in Oct 21, 2005, 
> and the word "Palaeooological" has been used constantly in 
> there!" The OED would regard these instances as specialist 
> jargon. If the word starts being used more broadly, then it will 
> eventually make it into the dictionary. Usage in a variety of 
> scientific journals (as opposed to only a couple) would probably 
> count. Better would be to get the word used in newspaper articles 
> about paleoological discoveries, such as fossil dinosaur or bird 
> embryos, or dating of archaeological sites from ostrich egg 
> shells. Most helpful would be antedatings of 2004, which would 
> establish that the word was in use well before the start of a 
> campaign to get it into the dictionary.
> 
> The advent of the Internet has swamped the editors at the OED 
> with new words to consider, so their criteria might become 
> stricter. It's easy to find words that are not in the dictionary; 
> for example "orangest" (superlative of orange). Show me a 
> dictionary that lists it. Then try googling it.
> 
> Gary
>