Perl added to the Oxford English Dictionary

From http://use.perl.org ...

jest writes: "A few months back we had a discussion about the putative addition of Perl to the Oxford English Dictionary, and I said at the time that though it had been drafted, it was not then in. I am happy to be able to announce that now (specifically, as of Thursday) Perl is in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Potentially relevant info includes that the form PERL is regarded as "irregular" (dictionary-ese for "wrong"); that the first known example is from a Usenet posting on 13 May 1987; that the form Perl is used for the language itself, with perl used for the Perl interpreter; that Larry Wall looked over the draft entry; and that the name comes from the word pearl with the -a- dropped to differentiate it from another language called PEARL, with the various acronymic expansions ("Practical Extraction and Report Language," etc.) being later rationalizations. "

perl -le "print+unpack'N',pack'B32','00000000000000000000001010011101'"

_{janitored by ybiC: Removed remaining stray accented chars, as per author's request}

Comment on Perl added to the Oxford English Dictionary

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Perl added to the Oxford English Dictionary by ysth (Canon) on Dec 15, 2003 at 07:59 UTC
So they finally did it. And apparently took the Usenet posting as good enough. I remember them asking around for the earliest print reference a few years ago.	[reply]
Re: Re: Perl added to the Oxford English Dictionary by DrHyde (Prior) on Dec 15, 2003 at 11:14 UTC
As I understand it, they won't put something in the dictionary until it has appeared in print, but will mention earlier electronic-only sightings.	[reply]
Re: Re: Re: Perl added to the Oxford English Dictionary by TVSET (Chaplain) on Dec 15, 2003 at 14:47 UTC
Maybe that Usenet posting has been included in one of the many Perl books... :) Leonid Mamtchenkov aka TVSET	[reply]
Re: Re: Perl added to the Oxford English Dictionary by jest (Pilgrim) on Dec 15, 2003 at 22:03 UTC
...which we also included as our second cite, and it was only one year later than the earliest Usenet post. (It was the first version of Vromans' Perl Reference Card.) Our policy for quoting electronic sources is in flux, but one thing that has been decided is that Usenet sources archived on Google Groups can be quoted if they represent the first example of a sense that's otherwise well-attested in printed sources. There are other electronic texts that can be cited under any circumstances (because we believe their dates to be unquestionably accurate), such as the RFC series.	[reply]


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