{"id":1123,"date":"2015-11-24T16:40:09","date_gmt":"2015-11-24T03:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=1123"},"modified":"2015-11-24T17:10:54","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T04:10:54","slug":"thats-not-a-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=1123","title":{"rendered":"\u2018That\u2019s not a word!\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?attachment_id=921\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-921\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-921\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/SOD-277x300.jpg\" alt=\"SOD\" width=\"277\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/SOD-277x300.jpg 277w, http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/SOD.jpg 499w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 277px) 100vw, 277px\" \/><\/a>\u2018That\u2019s not a word!\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Well, actually it is.\u00a0 The writer wrote it \u2013 and, as far as we can tell, a good portion of her readers understood what she meant in using it.\u00a0 So, for all practical purposes, it\u2019s a word.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Yeah, but it\u2019s not a <em>real<\/em> word.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018It\u2019s as real as any other word.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I bet you anything that you can\u2019t find it in a dictionary.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018You may well be right \u2013 for the moment \u2013 but that doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019s not a real word.\u00a0 Dictionaries don\u2019t lead; they follow.\u00a0 Dictionaries record the common spelling and meaning \u2013 or meanings \u2013 of words that people are already using.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018New words are being coined every day.\u00a0 Technically they are known as neologisms.\u00a0 Many of them wither away within a matter of months.\u00a0 But others stick around long enough to find their way into the next edition of The Oxford or Mirriam-Webster or one of the other authorities to whom we turn when we want to know the meaning or accepted spelling of a word with which we are unfamiliar.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018That\u2019s just silly.\u00a0 If that was the case, I could just make up a completely new word.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018You could.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018And if I could persuade a few people to use it, it could end up in a proper dictionary \u2013 even though I had just made it up.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Not only could it, but it probably would.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Hmm.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>And so ended the conversation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2018That\u2019s not a word!\u2019 \u2018Well, actually it is.\u00a0 The writer wrote it \u2013 and, as far as we can tell, a good portion of her readers understood what she meant in using it.\u00a0 So, for all practical purposes, it\u2019s a &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=1123\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1123"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1125,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123\/revisions\/1125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}