The New York Times is my Merkan paper of choice. It's one of very few mainstream US media sources that treats politics and politicians with anything other than obsequious unction. Today's editorial on Bush's (in)decision not to make a keynote speech about Iraq before Christmas is a good example:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/excoriate :]

You shouldn't use such necrotically vernacular language.

And you should use a more appropriate reference for word definitions.

Indeed. Wiki-anything is an unacceptable reference, due to mindless vandalism by people like me. Unless I was accidentally right about the thriving Nepalese community in Worcester Park. You can even edit other users' user pages, which is why Peter's has said he's a VB programmer for the last week (following a minor scuffle over assboxes).

It can sometimes can be a bit dodgy but I think a well-maintained wiki page can be one of the best references around, as long as you check the history to make sure the last edit wasn't a vandalism. With the biggest pages, any vandalism is generally reverted in a matter of minutes.

But yeah, if you are going to use it, I guess you should at least cross-reference it just to make sure.

You should trust your dear father's vocabulary.