Wikipedia

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

Wiki is an excellent resource of FIRST resort, if only because so many of the assertions are substantiated by footnotes to responsible sources that can themselves be consulted and used reliably. In other words, Wiki is a useful, if ragged, annotated bibliography.

it is also important to recall that Wiki may be influential, even where it is wrong. If one is interested in what the public believes about, e.g., word history rather than what the reality is, Wiki can be extremely useful (more than, say, UrbanDictionary).
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