In the Singapore press recently, there was much reporting on the furore surrounding the Ministry of Education's study of whether or not to reduce the weighting of the second language exam in the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE). While I'm all in favour of reducing the emphasis on the second language, what I found fascinating was the word weightage. A friend pointed out to me that there is no such word as weightage.
I checked my trusty Merriam-Webster and sure enough, there was no such word listed. I checked for weighting instead and also found no such word. However, the Oxford had weighting. It listed the primary definition of weighting as: allowance or adjustment made to take account of special circumstances or compensate for a distorting factor.
I did a search and had pages and pages of results on weightage, which proves nothing except that very few people check the dictionary on a daily basis. So, weighting it is.
