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A lexicographic error is an inaccurate entry in a
dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged Alphabetical order, alphabetically (or by Semitic root, consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical-and-stroke sorting, radical an ...
. Such problems, because they undercut the intention of providing authoritative guidance to readers and writers, attract special attention.


History

Although dictionaries are often expected to be flawless, most
lexicographers This list contains people who contributed to the field of lexicography, the theory and practice of compiling dictionaries. __NOTOC__ A * Maulvi Abdul Haq (India/Pakistan, 1872–1961) Baba-e-Urdu, English-Urdu dictionary *Ivar Aasen (Norway, 181 ...
and people who frequently use dictionaries are keenly aware that all dictionaries contain errors. The preparation of dictionaries requires immense time, expertise and concentration, and there are never sufficient human and financial resources available to ensure complete accuracy. In the words of Johnson himself, "Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true."


Examples

An early English-language example was the definition of ''pastern'' as "the
knee In humans and other primates, the knee joins the thigh with the leg and consists of two joints: one between the femur and tibia (tibiofemoral joint), and one between the femur and patella (patellofemoral joint). It is the largest joint in the hu ...
of a
horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 mi ...
" in Dr. Johnson's famed 18th-century ''Dictionary of the English Language''. That would suit the word ''fetlock'', but the pastern is in fact a long portion of the leg immediately below the fetlock. When a woman asked him why he had made the error, Johnson, according to Boswell, replied, "Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance." In the 1930s, ''Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition'' accidentally documented, for four years, a supposed word "
dord The word ''dord'' is a dictionary error in lexicography. It was accidentally created, as a ghost word, by the staff of G. and C. Merriam Company (now part of Merriam-Webster) in the '' New International Dictionary'', second edition (1934). That ...
", whose only basis was a clerical error by the publisher. The first edition (1987) of the ''Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary'' contained an entry for a verb ''hink,'' which it said was conjugated ''hinks, hinking, hinked'' and which it defined as follows: "If you hink, you think hopefully and unrealistically about something." The entry is 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 ...
included by the editors to trap plagiarists. The wording is the result of an in-house joke. However, some reviewers took it seriously, speculating for example that it is "clearly an error for 'think'." The word was removed from later editions. In the early 21st century, the online and
CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains computer data storage, data computers can read, but not write or erase. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold b ...
editions of the ''Macmillan English Dictionary'' gave two different spoken readings of the headword for the entry "George, St. – the PATRON SAINT of England": the American reading was the correct "Saint George," but the British reading was "George Street." Presumably the British narrator had been given a list of words to read and the
comma The comma is a punctuation mark that appears in several variants in different languages. Some typefaces render it as a small line, slightly curved or straight, but inclined from the vertical; others give it the appearance of a miniature fille ...
after "George" was either missing or overlooked.


References

Lexicography {{linguistics-stub