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I am in a situation on Meta Stack Overflow in which I dispute the validity of the system notification text "Code in your answer has been edited", because there was no code in the answer before the edit; merely, code was added to the answer after the edit.

Another user claims that this is simply a "more vague" meaning of "edit":

Saying it was edited is not wrong, it's just more vague. [..] I'm asserting that your definition of "edited" is incorrectly narrow.

I'm fairly confident, though, that in the phrase "to edit X" the "X" is what was present before the edit, not as a result of it. That is, you cannot edit something that is not there by adding the thing.

However I'm struggling to find a way to prove it.

How may I prove the following in a semi-formal manner?

"Hi there."  => "Hi you."         # "I edited the second word".  <-- OK
"Hi there."  => "Hi there you."   # "I edited the third word".   <-- NOT OK
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    If you consult any dictionary, you will see edit defined as "to revise, correct, change". It is self-evident that you cannot change something that does not exist (yet). There is no way to prove what is evident. So perhaps you should just ignore those people and spend your time on something more interesting and important! With in it would be all right, as you say. Jan 29, 2013 at 19:55

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For what it's worth, The American Heritage Dictionary, 4th edition, has this entry for edit in and edit out:

phrasal verbs: edit in To insert during the course of editing: An additional scene was edited in before the show was aired. edit out To delete during the course of editing; A controversial scene was edited out of the film.

So, you could, as Cereberus suggested in his comment, suggest that they edited in code to your answer. I personally would say they added code to your answer.

As for the system notification phrase in question, it's probably too cumbersome (or too sophisticated to expect) for an edit that includes an addition to be signaled with: "Code in your answer has been edited in."

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  • And, of course, if there were to be edited out as well, then why not have just a single message, has been edited ?
    – Andrew Leach
    Apr 23, 2014 at 13:21

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