Dord

A frighteningly funny tale about a ghost word

Today’s New York Times Spelling Bee letters:

I, M, O, R, T, Y and center D (all words must include D).

Merriam-Webster says…

Silly little dictionary! Don’t you know dord can’t possibly be a word if the New York Times says it ain’t?

For further fascinating facts, check out the Spelling Bee Master.

What’s your favorite g.n.a.w. from today’s puzzle?

My Two Cents

One word of my favorite words in the entire English language is dord. The only problem is…

it’s not a word!

But, but, but… what about that screen shot above, with the definition? It’s not from Getty Images or Pixabay or even *gasp!* Unsplash!

Did I just spend the last four hours carefully photo-shopping an slice of dictionary to make my case today? Have I gone completely off the deep end with my obsession with the stubborn editors of the Spelling Bee game?

Let’s just chillax and have some fun today. And maybe, just maybe, start the ball rolling on creating a new word. Or at least, bringing it back from the dead.

A lexicographer’s error

As Merriam-Webster explains, in 1934 the company decided to revamp the first edition of their world-famous dictionary. Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition, which had involved years of work by more than 250 word experts and editors, was to become the largest, thickest, heaviest book ever to be printed en masse.

It would also become the number one cause of hernias and back sprains in high school students between World War II and the fall of the Berlin War.

Back in the day, potential dictionary entries were typed on 3 x 5 index cards. Chemistry editor Austin M. Patterson completed one of several cards for the letter “D” as an abbreviation. Namely, for “density.” This is a photo of the original one:

There are two spaced in the entry; one between the “D” and “or”, the other between “or” and “d”. It should have been interpreted as “The letter D or the letter d, both abbreviations for the word ‘density’ ”.

But it wasn’t. The person who handled the card took it at face value and entered “dord” with “density” as its definition. No one knows how it got past editors and proofreaders, but the dictionary was published with this ghost word as an entry. It took five years for someone to discover the mistake, and then another eight for it to be corrected. When the 1947 printing of this Second Edition came out, “dord” had died a most inglorious death.

If you search online and in bookstores, you may find old editions with the entry. But you have to get the printings that came out between 1934 and 1946. It’s hard to find them in good shape, though.

Dawn of the dead… word

As it turns out, and technically-speaking, today (and only today) the editors of the Spelling Bee puzzle are correct.

I’ll admit it: “dord” is not a word. (Cue hysterical sobbing on my part.)

But it could be… with your help!

While I was thinking about what to write today, an idea popped in my head. Okay, it was more like it slapped me silly.

What if I could get Merriam-Webster to accept dord as a word again? Well, accept is a bit of a stretch, since it never really was a darling in any of their lexicographers’ eyes. In any case, I signed up to Change.org and created a petition for people to sign.

Now, I realize many online petitions address serious issues; by no means am I even hinting this is one of them. On the contrary.

With so much crap going on in the world, all I’m trying to do is lighten the load and brighten people’s lives with this. Maybe even put a smile on their faces as they head on over to sign.

So, please… stand up for dord! Sing the petition at the end of this article.

And in order to convince the editors of Merriam-Webster, I’ve proposed a new definition for the word, based on its history.

This is the entry I’m presenting for their consideration:

dord (dôrd) noun

inflected form(s): plural -s

1. a ghost word

2. a lexicographic error

Origin of DORD: English “D or d”, read as one word and included in Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition.

Example sentence: Many people think the word “irregardless” is a dord, but it’s first known use has been documented back to 1795.

Together, we can turn dord into a meta word. A term that was once ghosted will mean “ghost word”. The definition for “lexicographic error” will actually be a former lexicographer error.

Below is the Change.org petition. Click and sign, you word-lover you. I dare you. I double-dare you. Go ahead, make my day…

Think about it this way. If you help me convince Merriam-Webster to remove the ghost status of the word “dord”, the editors of the New York Times Spelling Bee won’t be able to say: “Gee, Not A Word”.

And please check out my previous entry on words that g.n.a.w. at you: