Ghost words are made-up words that become part of a language, often due to mistakes in dictionaries or mistranslations. They differ from neologisms, which are new words created by altering or combining existing words. The most famous ghost word is “dord”, accidentally created by Webster’s Dictionary in the 1930s. Ghost phrases, such as “glass shoe” in Cinderella, can also result from mistranslations. Some ghost words are invented by writers, such as “jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll. Despite being invented, ghost words become part of the language through popular usage.
A ghost word is a word that is made up, often incorrectly, but still becomes part of the language. One of the most famous ghost words is “dord”, accidentally created by dictionary publishers in the 1930s. Since dictionaries are the standard authorities on language, such words can be accepted without question. Some phantom words and phantom phrases are the result of a mistranslation of a work into English from its original language. Others were invented by writers and have become a part of the language through popular usage.
Words usually enter a language due to the need to name a thing or concept. In a language like English, they often derive from words from earlier languages like French, Latin, or Greek. Other times a neologism, or a new word, is created by altering or combining existing words. A ghost word is different; it is generally not created by these processes, but is invented entirely, sometimes by accident. Despite this, it passes into common use, becoming a “true” word.
The best known example of a ghost word is “dord”. This word was accidentally created by the editors of Webster’s Dictionary in the 1930s. An editor sent in a note for the dictionary’s list of abbreviations, citing “D od” as the chemists’ abbreviation for “density.” A proofreading error caused “dord” to be listed as a synonym for density. Later editors removed the entry, but not before the word had been used elsewhere, capriciously or otherwise.
Another common form of the word ghost is a “ghost phrase”, such as the famous “glass shoe” from the fairy tale Cinderella. Despite the dangerous impracticality of such footwear, the glass slipper has become a staple feature of the classic story. Scholars suspect this detail was created by mistaking the French word vair, or fur, for verre, glass, when the story was first rendered into English. The Bible has similar mistranslations, such as placing an apple, a fruit not native to the Middle East, in the Garden of Eden. This is probably the result of the translation of the Latin word malum, which means both “evil” and “apple”.
According to Robert Hendrickson’s Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, a ghost word can come from a nonsense word made up by a writer. A prime example is “jabberwocky,” invented by Lewis Carroll for his poem of the same name. Many other nonsense words from Carroll’s poetry have also joined the English language, including “giggles,” a kind of laughter. Another example is “panjandrum,” coined by 18th-century writer Samuel Foote in a nonsense passage. Although Foote intended to make his passage impossible to memorize, the word panjandrum, meaning a pretentious official, nevertheless became memorable.
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