Ken Cox
Posts 170
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Thingy is Now an Official Dummies Book Word
During the editing stage of ASP.NET 3.5 For Dummies, one of the editors objected to my use of the word 'thingy' and asked for a more specific noun. In the context of LINQ and anonymous types, I thought thingy was a perfectly good word. People use 'entity' all the time in .NET and to me, it's just as vague as thingy.
After all, this is a Dummies title, not one of those computer science text books like the Deitels produce. Why take it all so seriously? In a book that regularly warns readers of 'Technical Stuff', I couldn't see any problem with 'thingy' except maybe that my spelling of the plural was wrong.
I asked for support for my position on my blog and sure enough the editor relented. If a Dummies book author wants to refer to a thingy, it's a now good word for the rest of us! 
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