Friday, February 28, 2020

"Dord" really should be a word

But it's not.
"Dord" did, however, find its way into the 1934 edition of Merriam's New International Dictionary, where it stayed until the next edition was published in 1947. Apparently, rge error arose due to a note card by a Merriam's chemistry consultant indicating that density has two possible abbreviations, D or d. And, lo, "dord" was born.
It's a lovely story, and places "dord in the rarefied company of other dictionary errors and ghost words like like "hink", "kime", "adventine", "dentize", "foupe" and "morse".
But they really should be words.

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