Late News

Alright, so I should have known in March last year. But better late than never, right? Here's the heartstopping, earthshaking news of the century - literally!

The word "Muggle" (created by Joanne Rowling, meaning non-magic folk) was added in March 2003 to the Oxford English Dictionary. This is crazy stuff, guys, because in the last 146 years, the OED has only been updated thrice. It's the first time in more than a century and a half that a word created by a writer has been added to the dictionary while the writer is still alive!

The good news gets better: the last two updates have both added words created by fantasy writers. Guess who got his 'Hobbits' in in 1976! Sad, though, coz he was dead by then, but an honour nonetheless.

My question: does this mean that the word 'muggle' is now in public domain? The author does not have sole rights over it and stuff?

Which actually leads me to the question - do writers even own the words they create? We never use 'doublethink', for example, without making an actual reference to Orwell, explicit or implicit. Is that legally required, or it just the way things work?