While reporting on the crack-like properties of Blackberries, my friend John, one of the good folks over at the stellar DealBreaker.com, used the word addicting. A reader commented that "'Addicting' is not even a word."

The addicting/addictive debate is as old as the cosmos*. John called the reader's contention "absurd" and he's right; addicting is the participal adjective of addict, while addictive is simply the adjective. This is according to the OmotherfuckingED. Game, set and match.

Wayne, over on Dionidium, does a nice job of summing up the usage differences between the two words.

Addicting vs Addictive [Dionidium]
Crackberry: You Really Might Be Addicted [DealBreaker]

*That is, if the cosmos were created in 1939, OED's earliest reference to the words.

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