How does a word get into a Merriam-Webster dictionary?
"This is one of the questions Merriam-Webster editors are most often asked. The answer is simple: usage."
"How to get a word into the dictionary."
How words get into the Oxford English Dictionary
"I have seen the word 'linguaphile' (meaning word lover or language lover) on Dictionary.com and the Free Dictionary, but it's not there in the Oxford English Dictionary. It no longer tries to be comprehensive."
Oxford Standardizes Slang by Adding New Words to the Dictionary
"The Oxford University Press might have just become Stephen Colbert's new BFF. The prestigious publisher added Colbert's 'truthiness' to the New Oxford American Dictionary, according to the list of new dictionary words offered on the OUP blog on September 16, 2010."
"A student recently e-mailed me to enquire how a word officially becomes part of the English language. He was certain that there must be some formal process involved. Surely, he said, there must be a body such as a group of lexicographers that decides when a word is really a word, as otherwise English would be anarchic."
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