Where it sits
Both are words or entries with nothing real behind them. The difference is intent.
What it doesn't mean
It's deliberate. Accidental fake words, like dord, are called ghost words. A mountweazel is planted on purpose.
She never existed. One of the encyclopedia's editors told The New Yorker it was an old tradition to put in a fake entry to protect copyright.
What it really means
Turn to page 1,850 of the 1975 New Columbia Encyclopedia and you'll find Lillian Virginia Mountweazel: a fountain designer turned photographer, born in Bangs, Ohio, celebrated for her pictures of rural American mailboxes, and killed at 31 in an explosion while on assignment for Combustibles magazine.
None of it is true. She never existed. One of the encyclopedia's editors, Richard Steins, explained to The New Yorker in 2005 that it was an old tradition in encyclopedias to put in a fake entry to protect copyright. If anyone copied Lillian, they'd know where it came from.
Her surname became the name for the whole practice. A mountweazel is a fake entry planted on purpose in a reference work, whether a dictionary, an encyclopedia, a directory or a map. It has no value to readers. Its only job is to be copied, so the copier can be caught.
The word was coined in that 2005 New Yorker piece by Henry Alford. After telling Lillian's story, he went hunting for a rumoured fake word in the New Oxford American Dictionary and called his six suspects "potential Mountweazels". The culprit turned out to be esquivalience, invented by Oxford's editors in 2001. The term caught on: by 2016 a linguistics textbook was using "mountweazel" as an ordinary noun.
A mountweazel is the deliberate relative of the ghost word. A ghost word like dord is born from an accident. A mountweazel is designed, and Lillian's entry hints at its own joke: she died in an explosion while working for a magazine called Combustibles.
Where it comes from
- 1975
The New Columbia Encyclopedia includes Lillian Virginia Mountweazel, a fountain designer turned photographer, said to have died at 31 in an explosion while on assignment for Combustibles magazine.
- 2005
Henry Alford's New Yorker article opens with her story, and hunts for 'potential Mountweazels' in the New Oxford American Dictionary.
- 2005
The hunt identifies esquivalience, a fake word planted by Oxford's editors in 2001.
- 2016
A linguistics textbook (Burridge and Bergs, Understanding Language Change) uses 'mountweazel' as an ordinary noun, as Wiktionary records.
In real life
- The map company swore the village was a mountweazel, put there to catch anyone tracing their maps.
- Our quiz app has its own mountweazel: one question about a composer who never existed.
- Before she cited the entry, she checked a second source, just in case it was a mountweazel.
Questions
Q01What is a mountweazel?
A fake entry deliberately included in a reference work — a dictionary, encyclopedia, directory or map — so that the publisher can prove it if someone copies the work.
Q02Where does the word mountweazel come from?
From Lillian Virginia Mountweazel, an invented entry in the 1975 New Columbia Encyclopedia: a fountain designer turned photographer who supposedly died in an explosion while on assignment for Combustibles magazine. Henry Alford's 2005 New Yorker article turned her name into a general term.
Q03What is the most famous mountweazel?
In dictionaries, esquivalience, which the New Oxford American Dictionary invented in 2001 and confirmed as fake in 2005. Lillian Mountweazel herself is the most famous in encyclopedias.
Q04What's the difference between a mountweazel and a ghost word?
Intent. A ghost word, like dord, is an accident — a misprint or misreading. A mountweazel is planted on purpose.
Sources
- Henry Alford, 'Not a Word' — The New Yorker, 29 August 2005.
- Fictitious entry — Wikipedia.
- mountweazel — Wiktionary.