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General Category => Words => Topic started by: whisky on February 19, 2020, 06:26:49 PM

Title: New Word?
Post by: whisky on February 19, 2020, 06:26:49 PM
In the recent ENLARGEMENT puzzle, I tried the word Erlang.
It is a measure of telephony traffic.
Yes it is somewhat technical.

In some references it is referenced as Erlang and others as erlang ( without capitalisation ).

Is it a candidate for a rare word ?

Michael
Title: Re: New Word?
Post by: Calilasseia on February 27, 2020, 01:42:01 PM
My first encounter with erlang was as the name of a programming language for real-time applications.

Probably not the first thought on everyone's mind I know, but ... :)
Title: Re: New Word?
Post by: Alan W on March 23, 2020, 02:59:17 PM
A number of general dictionaries list erlang, with a lower case e, including Collins, Dictionary.com and Wiktionary. It looks like some users of the word capitalize it, while others don't. It is named after a person, the Danish mathematician and engineer A.K. Erlang, but it seems to be normal for units of measure to be written without capitals even when they're named after someone, e.g. newton, pascal. It can be found in both forms on the website of the International Telecommunications Union.

I'll add erlang as a rare word.