The word 'wiki' has officially made it into the
Oxford
English Dictionary.
'Wiki' began life as 'wiki wiki', a Hawaiian word meaning 'quick', but the
OED has recognised the abbreviated version as "a type of web page designed so
that its content can be edited by anyone who accesses it, using a simplified
mark-up language".
"This joins a small but distinguished group of words which are directly or
ultimately borrowings into English from Hawaiian," said Graeme Diamond,
principal editor of new words at the OED.
"It has been suggested that in some ways the OED itself resembles a wiki. Its
long tradition of working on collaborative principles means it has welcomed the
contribution of information and quotation evidence from the public for over 150
years."
Although 'wiki' has been in common parlance for some years now, the OED
usually takes its time before adding new terms to the English lexicon. The verb
'to google'
was not included until last year.
Other technology related words include 'virtualise', defined as "creating
pure software based systems within a single computer"; 'undelete' as a noun and
a verb; and 'technopreneur', a "businessman solely involved in the IT industry"
.
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