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FAQ Do I use plugin or plug-in?
That depends. Those with a slavish devotion to the dictates of the English language—copy editors, English teachers, and automatic spellcheckers—will insist that because “plugin” is not a recognized word, the hyphenated plug-in is required. Others—writers, hackers, and the general public—recognize that language is an organic structure that must adapt and evolve to remain relevant. This latter group welcomes the introduction of new words into the lexicon and, thus, will happily adopt the new word plugin. While we use plug-in in this book, here is a more practical answer: If you are searching in the documentation, use plug-in. If you are grepping or writing code, use plugin. If you do not think grepping is a word, you are a lost cause.
This FAQ was originally published in Official Eclipse 3.0 FAQs. Copyright 2004, Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. This text is made available here under the terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0.