Topic: At what point does a fake word become real?

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Posted by: panlives (Oct 24, 2011 08:39AM)

About 10 years ago, a fake word was pranked into the New Oxford American Dictionary.

It was a ruse to corner other lexicographers who might steal the NOAD material.

Fittingly, the word the NOAD editors chose to create was, "esquivalience," - which they defined as the "willful avoidance of one’s official responsibilities; the shirking of duties.”

Within a short time, the word turned up at Dictionary.com (it has since been taken down). At the time, Dictionary.com referenced Webster’s New Millennium Dictionary. The last time I checked, the word has multiple listings on Google Dictionary.

So… at what point does a fabricated word become “real”?

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Posted by: LukeB (Oct 24, 2011 09:59AM)

Depends what you mean by real.Even if fraudulent in origin if enough people picked it up and it became widespread it would go through the same process as other new words before being added to the dictionary.

Luke

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Posted by: Magnus Eisengrim (Oct 24, 2011 10:12AM)

That's a funny story.

Often when I use a dubious word and someone says,"Is that really a word?" I reply "It is now."

It is, as Richard Sanders might say, "finesseful".

John

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Posted by: critter (Oct 24, 2011 11:11AM)

Oh, don't be so equidilatephant.

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Posted by: LobowolfXXX (Oct 24, 2011 11:54AM)

"if K-A-T doesn't spell [cat] what [i]does[/i] it spell?". (it's kind of an auditory joke).

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Posted by: randirain (Oct 24, 2011 12:00PM)

What? 'esquivalience' is a perfectly cromulent word.

Randi

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Posted by: critter (Oct 24, 2011 12:02PM)

I rehyptulate with the previously alchestrelized prostmagation.

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Posted by: Jonathan Townsend (Oct 24, 2011 04:50PM)

There are folks speaking Klingon who'd be insulted in you even raised the question.

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Posted by: critter (Oct 24, 2011 04:52PM)

[quote]
On 2011-10-24 17:50, Jonathan Townsend wrote:
There are folks speaking Klingon who'd be insulted in you even raised the question.
[/quote]

Or High Elvish.

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Posted by: Jonathan Townsend (Oct 24, 2011 04:53PM)

So I guess both are cromulent and we can move along. :)

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Posted by: critter (Oct 24, 2011 04:55PM)

Smeggin' A!

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Posted by: Jonathan Townsend (Oct 24, 2011 05:06PM)

What do you think of "frack" ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing

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Posted by: Ray Tupper. (Oct 24, 2011 05:29PM)

These will never be recognised words as long as I have a hole in my bispherelmethaneemittmentfunnel.
Ray.

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Posted by: jazzy snazzy (Oct 24, 2011 07:01PM)

This subject was on NPR the other day.
The American Dialect Society has a committee that selects a new word of the year.
So far this year, "occupy" is a leading contender.

http://www.americandialect.org/

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Posted by: Steve_Mollett (Oct 24, 2011 07:10PM)

Real-world example:
The term 'nerd' stemmed from a nonsense-epithet created in Mad Magazine in the 1960s: "knurd."
At that time, while knurd was used as an implied-negative description, it had no concrete meaning.
It was, in reality, simply the word "drunk" spelled backward.

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Posted by: Jonathan Townsend (Oct 24, 2011 07:15PM)

The notion has been explored extensively -
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tl%C3%B6n,_Uqbar,_Orbis_Tertius]here[/url] and even [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babel_17]here[/url].

Enjoy the stories. The Klingon phenomenon happened after.

mediabyte: And in the real world - folks are speaking Newspeak, Klingon and Elvis - at the local comicon even as you read this. Film at 11 ;)