Etymology of Dord - a Ghost Word

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	Etymology of Dord - a Ghost Word

enSue

1-14-2008 9:06 AM

826 views

tags:

etymology, words, websters, dictionary, legend, urban, mistake, myth

enSue says:

This is amusing and very believable. I wonder how often this has occurred throughout the publication of printed dictionaries.

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1-14-2008 10:23 AM

syncopath

* The words i am about to
express, they now have their own crowned Goddess Leonardo Diaz

but this is a real strange event this ghost came into existece even much before being uttered .... ??!! ..-))

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/f99305a8-435b-4eb9-94da-91cc00a1246f/3D3DF308-232F-4897-B342-96B6990B5776/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.snopes.com/language/mistakes/dord.asp" href="http://www.snopes.com/language/mistakes/dord.asp" style="font-size: 11px;">www.snopes.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.snopes.com/language/mistakes/dord.asp">For five years, <I>Webster's New International Dictionary</I> mistakenly included an entry for <I>dord</I>, a word which did not exist.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.snopes.com/language/mistakes/dord.asp"><div align="center"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/www.snopes.com/img/7C8732FC-2E34-468D-9C43-1E5C0D2CEC14" alt="D('oh)rd!" /></div></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.snopes.com/language/mistakes/dord.asp"><I>dord</I> was truly a ghost word</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.snopes.com/language/mistakes/dord.asp">no etymology or example of use</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.snopes.com/language/mistakes/dord.asp">abbreviations were supposed to be collected in a separate section at the back of the dictionary.  In 1931, a card had been prepared bearing the notation <NOBR>"D or d, cont/ density"</NOBR> to indicate that the next edition of the dictionary should include additional definitions for <I>D</I> and <I>d</I> as abbreviations of the word <I>density</I>.   Somehow the card became misdirected during the editorial process and landed in the "words" pile rather than the "abbreviations" pile. The <NOBR>"D or d"</NOBR> notation ended up being set as the single word <I>dord</I>, a synonym for <I>density</I>.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.snopes.com/language/mistakes/dord.asp">The ghost word was banished from <I>Webster's</I> with hardly anyone's having noticed its presence, but it continued to rematerialize in the dictionaries of careless compilers for years afterwards.</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/3D3DF308-232F-4897-B342-96B6990B5776/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>