The word ''dord'' is a
dictionary error in
lexicography
Lexicography is the study of lexicons and the art of compiling dictionaries. It is divided into two separate academic disciplines:
* Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries.
* Theoretical le ...
. It was accidentally created, as a
ghost word
In folklore, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or non-human animal that is believed by some people to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely, from an invisible presence to translucen ...
, by the staff of G. and C. Merriam Company (now part of
Merriam-Webster
Merriam-Webster, Incorporated is an list of companies of the United States by state, American company that publishes reference work, reference books and is mostly known for Webster's Dictionary, its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary pub ...
) in the ''
New International Dictionary'', second edition (1934). That dictionary defined the term as a synonym for density used in physics and chemistry in the following way:
dord (dôrd), ''n. Physics & Chem.'' Density.
Philip Babcock Gove, an editor at
Merriam-Webster
Merriam-Webster, Incorporated is an list of companies of the United States by state, American company that publishes reference work, reference books and is mostly known for Webster's Dictionary, its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary pub ...
who became editor-in-chief of ''
Webster's Third New International Dictionary'', wrote a letter to the journal ''American Speech'', fifteen years after the error was caught, in which he explained how the "dord" error was introduced and corrected.
On 31 July 1931, Austin M. Patterson, the dictionary's
chemistry
Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...
editor, sent in a slip reading "D or d, cont./density." This was intended to add "
density
Density (volumetric mass density or specific mass) is the ratio of a substance's mass to its volume. The symbol most often used for density is ''ρ'' (the lower case Greek letter rho), although the Latin letter ''D'' (or ''d'') can also be u ...
" to the existing list of words that the letter "D" can abbreviate. The phrase "D or d" was misinterpreted as a single, word: ''Dord''. This was a plausible mistake because headwords on slips were typed with spaces between the letters, so "D or d" looked very much like "D o r d". The original slip went missing, so a new slip was prepared for the printer, which assigned a
part of speech (
noun
In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...
) and a
pronunciation. The would-be word was not questioned or corrected by
proofreaders.
The entry appeared on page 771 of the dictionary around 1934, between the entries for ''
Dorcopsis'' (a type of small kangaroo) and
doré (golden in color).
[
On 28 February 1939, an editor noticed "dord" lacked an ]etymology
Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...
and investigated, discovering the error. An order was sent to the printer marked "plate change/imperative/urgent". The non-word "dord" was excised; "density" was added as an additional meaning for the abbreviation "D or d" as originally intended, and the definition of the adjacent entry " Doré furnace" was expanded from "A furnace for refining Doré bullion" to "a furnace in which Doré bullion is refined" to close up the space. Gove wrote that this was "probably too bad, for why shouldn't ''dord'' mean 'density'?"ghost word
In folklore, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or non-human animal that is believed by some people to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely, from an invisible presence to translucen ...
, although inspection of printed copies well into the 1940s shows "dord" still present. The entry "dord" was not completely removed until 1947.
See also
* Boole's rule, a mathematical rule sometimes known as "Bode's rule" due to a typographical error
* Esquivalience
* Fictitious entry
* '' Frindle'', a children's novel in which a fictitious word passes into common parlance
* Mondegreen
* Phono-semantic matching
Phono-semantic matching (PSM) is the incorporation of a word into one language from another, often creating a neologism, where the word's non-native quality is hidden by replacing it with phonetically and semantically similar words or roots f ...
* Trap street
References
{{Reflist
External links
"Dord" at fun-with-words.com; quotes Gove article
Dord: A Ghost Word
Fictitious entries
Lexicography
English words
Error