<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Hello all!</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Well, this game has lain dormat for about a week, so it's probably time to wrap it up.</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">As you may recall, the game was to spot the fake word among the "real" words. The editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary had inserted a fake word starting with "e" as bait for copyright violators. The New Yorker's correspondent, Henry Alford, had narrowed it down to six choices (defined in my email of 27 August): earth loop, EGD, electrofish, ELSS, esquivalience, and eurocreep.
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">The fictionauts who responded were pretty much lined up behind one choice as the fake: esquivalience. Five folks submitted comments (plus Linda Owens, who had read the New Yorker piece just before I posted the game), and all cast doubt on its veracity.
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>Kir identified it as the fake without comment. Ranjit thought he had seen that word recently (but couldn't remember why), and named it as the fake based on "my ambiguous outside info." Nora Munoz said it "looks so fake, it could possibly be real," and ultimately named it as the "fakest looking definition." Pierre Abbat said that it sounded like "someone stuck two letter in 'equivalence' and made up a definition." Jean-Joseph said that it was his "first choice, because it looks so fictionaryish.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And because it would be a bit of a comment on anyone who plagiarized the word, implying that he were doing so rather than putting in the proper research effort."</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>Elliott provided the most detailed rationale, which I quote in full:</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>"My money's on this one, for two reasons:</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>"(1) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It SOUNDS like a Fictionary definition:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>The meaning has to do with something fake or deceptive, an era remote from our own is vaguely specified, there's an official-looking etymology, and it uses the word 'perhaps'.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>
If only they'd included 'usu.' and 'prob. Aus.'.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>"(2)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If you're designing a fraudulent word for a dictionary to trap plagiarists, you need to make sure it *stays* fraudulent.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>With any of the other words in this list, you'd run the risk that someone might independently invent it, or that your own invention might catch on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Then, if it turned up in someone else's dictionary, you wouldn't be able to prove they'd filched it from yours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>'Esquivalience' avoids this problem. The sound isn't catchy, nor transparently related to the meaning, and the word doesn't fill a need ('nonfeasance' covers the concept just fine)."
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>However, Jean-Joseph pointed out that there is a risk that *any* word in a dictionary might become accepted as a real, genuine word, and related the strange case of the obviously made-up word "zzxjoanw," which seems to have fooled some people.
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">So there you are. None of the other words got nearly as much scrutiny, but some did get some sidelong support.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>"Earth loop": Nora thought it likely that the British would, in fact, have a different term for this.
Pierre also attested to its genuineness.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>"EGD": Pierre thought he had heard of these devices (though not necessarily of the term naming them), while Nora was reminded of a scene with Tom Cruise using such a device in
Mission: Impossible or its sequel.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>"Electrofish" got some support. Ranjit named it as the least plausible definition, but ultimately didn't vote for it. Nora had heard of people participating in this activity, while
Pierre hadn't (and named it as his second choice).</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>"ELSS": Nora thought it unlikely that the term existed, because she was uncertain whether the concept had reason to exist.
Pierre deemed it plausible for astronauts.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>"Eurocreep": Nora found this the most unlikely (as opposed to the fakest-looking) definition. "The thing that makes me question this word is that there are only three countries in the EU that haven't accepted the euro:
Denmark, Sweden, and the UK.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I think the term would be better if it were broader.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If the definition were 'the gradual acceptance of the euro in countries that have not yet officially adopted it as their national currency' I might be more likely to accept it.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There are probably countries taking the euro that are not in the EU, and I think there is eurocreep there." She also submitted an alternative definition for the term: "a European youth traveling across the
United States or Australia bugging the other tourists, particularly at national parks and monuments."</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Of the nine "lexicographical authorities" to whom Alford emailed the choices, seven of them also lined up behind "esquivalience." Two of them were unnamed and unquoted in the article, but five spoke for attribution (with punctuation altered by me).
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>Anne Soukhanov [U.S. general editor, Encarta Webster's]: "Ess-kwa-val-ee-OHNCE (I want to pronounce it in the French manner) is your culprit."
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>Wendalyn Nichols [editor-in-chief, "Copy Editor" newsletter]: "It's just trying a little too hard. . . . If it's derived from esquiver, it wouldn't have that ending. Nothing linguistically would give rise to the 'l.'"
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>Will Shortz [puzzle editor, New York Times]: "I simply can't believe such a thing goes back to the nineteenth century."
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>Steve Kleinedler [senior editor, American Heritage Dictionary]: "The stress pattern is strange."
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>Eli Horowitz [editor, "The Future Dictionary of America" literary anthology]: "I had to read it a few times, and I resent that."
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Two of the experts dissented:</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>Sidney Landau [editor, Cambridge Dictionary of American English]: "'Esquivalience' is too elaborate. . . . If someone made that up, they're nuts." His choice: "ELSS," "for the simple reason that it's short. A dictionary wouldn't want to waste more than a line or two."
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>Garret Thomson [programmer, <a href="http://pseudodictionary.com">pseudodictionary.com</a>, "the dictionary for words that wouldn't make it into the dictionaries"]: His choice was "electrofish," which he deemed "clunky-sounding."
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">And now, the moment for which you've all been waiting…</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>Erin McKean, the editor-in-chief of the second edition of the New Oxford American Dictionary, confirmed that "esquivalience" is, indeed, the fake word. She noted that it actually made its first appearance in NOAD's first edition, in 2001. "The editors figured, We're all working really hard, so let's put in a word that means 'working really hard.' Nothing materialized, so they thought, Let's do the opposite." The term was coined by editor Christine Lindberg, and has since been spotted on
<a href="http://dictionary.com">dictionary.com</a>, which cites Webster's New Millennium as its source.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>More from McKean: "Its inherent fakeitude is fairly obvious. . . . We *wanted* something highly improbable. We were trying to make a word that could not arise in nature."
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">So there you are. Hope you had fun!</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">--James</font></p>