A week or so ago, someone tried to use Wikipedia to coin a new word, 'wittertainment'. The entry began as follows:
Wittertainment is a term inspired by the ‘Good Doctor’ Mark Kermode's film reviews on Simon Mayo's BBC Radio Five Live show.
Suggested usage: “Wittertainment at its most wittertaining”
In a nutshell, Kermode...is provoked into ranting by the urbane and erudite, Mayo, a perfect foil for the discontemparily-coiffed (sic), Kermode.
Now, Wikipedia policy forbids the coining of new words, and requires the citing of sources, so the Wittertainment article was deleted (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Wittertainment). However, the Wittertainment entry was read out on last Friday's film review slot, and this fact was added to the Wikipedia entry prior to deletion. This means that the entry acquired a source, even if the origin of the source was circular. This begs the question of whether Wikipedia entries could be self-generating. If 'wittertainment' enters general usage because of the Wikipedia entry, then the entry will have to be restored, and will become a self-generating encyclopedia article.
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2 comments:
'Wittertainment' is not a nice word. It doesn't trip off the tongue really, does it? As for the notion of Wikipedia becoming a self-generating encyclopedia, surely if that kind of thing started it would no longer be an encyclopedia. It would become something else entirely. I don't know, some form of... wittertainment!
'Wittertainment' describes the original radio show perfectly.
I don't think it is that bad a word
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