
'Dord': A Ghost Word - joe5150
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/dord-a-ghost-word
======
barrkel
The cards are more interesting to me than the word, which I originally thought
was going to be some kind of copyright-protecting deliberate mistake.

The cards remind me of Jira tickets, with stamps and names as a kind of audit
log of work associated with the ticket. I find myself curious about the
information architecture and paper processes that companies built around such
tickets going to and fro.

Such architectures probably have fairly close analogues in distributed
systems, and there may be a thing or two to learn from how more innovative and
efficient organizations structured their paper pushing.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Speaking of that, I need to find time one of these days to research what the
hell "a memo" is. I understand it was a piece of paper of sorts, used in a way
similar to how e-mails are used today, but I don't understand how they were
delivered to people, what was the equivalent of MTA there. I know how to use
the word in writing ("I didn't get the memo"), but not much more than that.

~~~
earthboundkid
I’m a millennial (late thirties), but I’ve worked in offices where there’s an
internal mail system in which you write someone’s name on an envelope and then
when it gets delivered, the name is scratched off to make it available for
reuse for the next internal mailing.

~~~
Infernal
Similar age and experience. Office keys, property tags, t-shirts or other
swag, etc. arrive in those campus mail envelopes with the little string-and-
knob closure and about 50 places for addressees on them.

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userbinator
A 386 assembler I used in the late 80s (when the 386 was still new)
consistently referred to 32-bit quantities in its documentation and error
messages as a "dord", so that's what came to mind when I read this article. I
assume that was also either because of a "propagating typo" from "dword" (this
was software from Eastern Europe, where English wasn't all that common), or
because it seemed more convenient to have "byte", "word", and "dord" all be
the same number of characters.

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mci
In 1995, Polish Scientific Publishers PWN, a long-time publisher of
dictionaries, sued Kurpisz, a new publishing house, for plagiarizing their
large dictionary of Polish. The case was closed in favor of PWN in 2005,
hitting the Supreme Court along the way.

Among the evidence against Kurpisz was their entry on the nonce word "amikus"
(meaning "friend"), which they illustrated with the quotation "spijał się ze
swoimi amikusami" (he was getting drunk with his friends) but could not tell
the court where they had gotten the quotation from. Nowadays, with libraries
digitizing every flimsy old book, they would find the source easily.

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superhuzza
The urgency in that correction slip is amusing (Imperative! Urgent! A ghost
word!), considering how inconsequential of a mistake it is.

What's the absolute worst case caused by a ghost word like dord - someone
accidentally uses it in a paper?

~~~
reaperducer
_The urgency in that correction slip is amusing (Imperative! Urgent! A ghost
word!), considering how inconsequential of a mistake it is._

For some people everything is urgent. Everything.

It's part of the reason that web pages because so unusable. Every single lower
middle manager thinks their change is the most important thing in the world.

~~~
tom_
Perhaps wider events in the period 1940-7 pushed this urgent, imperative issue
further down the priority list than might otherwise have been the case.

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macintux
I thought for a moment this might be like a trap street.

~~~
colanderman
There are in fact such words, e.g. "esquivalence":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Oxford_American_Dictionary...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Oxford_American_Dictionary#Fictitious_entry)

~~~
cgriswald
I don’t know how that can work in practice. If it’s in a dictionary, it might
get used and then... it should be in other dictionaries. Do they cycle them in
and out?

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murrayb
I thought it was going to be about the musical instrument-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dord_(instrument)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dord_\(instrument\)),
somebody should let Merriam-Webster know :)

~~~
happy-go-lucky
The wind instrument is also usually seen in South India :)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kombu_(instrument)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kombu_\(instrument\))

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ttctciyf
Reading this, I realised the fnords are everywhere, once you know how[0] to
look for them.

0:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=%22fn+or+d%22](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22fn+or+d%22)

~~~
ggm
Fnord! Dillinger says hello

------
grawprog
This really stopped and made me consider the amount of work that goes into
making dictionaries, especially before computers, and the completely mind
numbing and awful job it must be to be a dictionary editor. Then again, I'm
sure some people out there probably love it but, I just imagined for a moment
having to be the person going through those and adding them to the dictionary
and honestly, it wasn't a happy thought.

Anyone who did that, or still does, and anyone who enjoys doing that kind of
work, I just say props to you guys. People like you work on those little
details that makes the world interesting and do the things that get
unappreciated but used by everybody. Just wanted to say thanks to all the
dictionary editors and people doing work like that. I'm sure you guys don't
get appreciated as much as you should.

~~~
nsomaru
[https://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/johnsons/pat...](https://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/johnsons/patron.htm)

“ Seven years, my lord, have now passed, since I waited in your outward rooms,
or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my
work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have
brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of
assistance (1), one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such
treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before.”

~~~
yesenadam
Gee, that version (which wikipedia also links to) is very mangled. "Is not a
patrons my lord" ?!

The letter concludes with:

Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for
life in the water, and when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?
The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been
early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and
cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known,
and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess
obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the
public should consider me as owing that to a Patron, which Providence has
enabled me to do for myself.

Having carried on my work thus far, with so little obligations to any favourer
of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I shall conclude it, if less
be possible, with less; for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope,
in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation,

My Lord,

Your lordship’s most humble,

Most obedient servant,

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

[https://archive.org/details/beautiessamuelj00keargoog/page/n...](https://archive.org/details/beautiessamuelj00keargoog/page/n64/mode/2up)

------
erichurkman
I wonder why they didn't just adopt it as a fictitious entry?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry)

------
hirundo
Dord is a perfectly cromulent word.

~~~
quickthrower2
It must be, it's in the Merriam-Webster dictionary on my bookshelf.

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_emacsomancer_
There are 'ghost words' which have become established. E.g. _derring-do_:

"The two words _durring_, _dorryng_, _daring_, verbal noun from _durran_,
_dorren_ "to dare" v.1, and _don_, _do_, present infinitive of "do" v.,
literally "daring to do", which, by a chain of misunderstandings and errors,
have come to be treated as a kind of substantive combination, taken to mean,
Daring action or feats, ‘desperate courage’.

The words come incidentally in their ordinary sense and construction followed
by the object ‘that’ (= what, that which) in Chaucer's Troylus; whence, in an
imitative passage by Lydgate, in an absolute construction more liable to
misunderstanding; Lydgate's _dorryng do_ was _misprinted_ in the 16th cent.
editions (1513 and 1555) _derrynge do_, in which form it was picked up by
Spenser and misconstrued as a substantive phrase, explained in the Glossary to
the Sheph. Cal. as ‘manhood and chevalrie’. Modern romantic writers, led by
Sir W. Scott, have taken it from Spenser, printed it _derring-do_, and
accentuated the erroneous use."

(from the OED)

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phoe-krk
The article mentions the abbreviation ULEC, but it does not define it. Does
anyone know what it means?

~~~
webkike
Right above its first usage: Universal Lexicographer's Ethical Code

~~~
phoe-krk
Thanks, I missed it in the text.

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derimagia
I remember learning this years ago from a video which turns out to also be
made by Merriam Webster:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3sDiH3FhnY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3sDiH3FhnY)

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sfgweilr4f
You could say they completely increased the dord of the whole situation for
quite a few years. Ha! Take that! Now we just need a few hundred people to
also use it and it slowly becomes real. The circle becomes complete.

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Pxtl
[https://dord-orbit.tumblr.com/](https://dord-orbit.tumblr.com/)

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dkdbejwi383
I wanna be a dord

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johnlbevan2
I am much a dord

