Subject: reverse fictionary!

From: James Kushner <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 08:43:53 -0500

Hello all!

Well, as we wait for Ranjit's vacation to draw to a close, the New
Yorker has coincidentally come to the rescue with a reverse puzzle.

In the 29 Aug 2005 issue (the most recent to hit my mailbox, though
the delivery schedule for the New Yorker is unconscionably slow 'round
these parts), there's a piece on page 32 by Henry Alford entitled "Not
a Word." This was triggered by the revelation that the
recently-published second edition of the New Oxford American
Dictionary contains a made-up word starting with "e." (It's the
dictionary equivalent of cartographer's fraud - call it
lexicographer's fraud.)

The author sifted through the e's, selected the six entries he thought
most likely to be fake, and then submitted his list to nine known
lexicographical authorities. Can you spot the fake among the real
definitions?

My email won't do italics or small caps today (long story), so I'll
change the formatting slightly from the original dictionary entries.
Here were the most likely candidates for a fake entry, as determined
by Alford:

* * * * *

earth loop - n. [Electrical] British term for GROUND LOOP.

EGD - n. a technology or system that integrates a computer display
with a pair of eyeglasses . . . abbreviation of eyeglass display.

electrofish - v. [trans.] fish (a stretch of water) using
electrocution or a weak electric field.

ELSS - abbr. extravehicular life support system.

esquivalience - n. the willful avoidance of one's official
responsibilities . . . late 19th cent.: perhaps from French esquiver,
"dodge, slink away."

eurocreep - n. [informal] the gradual acceptance of the euro in
European Union countries that have not yet officially adopted it as
their national currency.

* * * * *

Send your votes to me, if you like. I'm more interested in the
comments than the votes. Correct answers will receive nothing besides
the satisfaction of a job well done.

I'll tell you the answer when Ranjit returns and submits a word for
consideration.

Enjoy,
James

---

From: James Kushner <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 19:03:15 -0500

Hi all!

Nora Munoz raised an interesting point: wouldn't it be funny if Alford
chose six genuine words, failing to spot the fake even as a
possibility?

It would be funny, but [un?]fortunately, that's not the case. One of
the six words on Alford's list is, in fact, the fake. So you can rest
easy on that point.

--James