Recently it has been exposed that a fictitious word starting with the letter 'E' was deliberately placed in an dictionary for copyright purposes. What is this word, what did it supposedly mean, and which German word is given for cases of this description (Printing false information in encyclopedias etc etc) ?

gmackematix

Esquivalience. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilartikel Maybe it's not quite a "Nihilartikel" but I think that the Chambers Concise Dictionary once had the definition of an eclair as "A cake that is long in shape and short in duration". A recent edition of Collins Spanish-English Dictionary includes the word "jandote" supposedly meaning handout. I like the old English "Yellow Pages" entry that used to say "Boring: See Civil Engineers". Nov 20 05, 10:15 PM

gmackematix

And then there was that accidental Nihilartikel, "Dord". Nov 20 05, 10:18 PM

peasypod

Certainly is gmack, the New Yorker article let the cat out of the bag a couple of months ago. Can I fake a Hot Earl Grey? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esquivalience Nov 20 05, 10:41 PM

peasypod

Oh, and yes, Gerard, now we have our search engine back we can find your 'Dord' question from last year.... Nov 20 05, 10:43 PM

gmackematix

In theory...! :) But wow! I thought I'd never see that running again! If they fix the Recent Replies now, what will we have to whinge about? Nov 21 05, 1:41 AM