A lexicographic error is an inaccurate entry in a
dictionary
A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies ...
. Such problems, because they undercut the intention of providing authoritative guidance to readers and writers, attract special attention.
An early English-language example was the definition of ''pastern'' as "the
knee
In humans and other primates, the knee joins the thigh with the leg and consists of two joints: one between the femur and tibia (tibiofemoral joint), and one between the femur and patella (patellofemoral joint). It is the largest joint in the hu ...
of a
horse
The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million y ...
" in
Dr. Johnson
Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary criticism, critic, biographer, editor and lexicogra ...
's famed 18th-century ''Dictionary of the English Language''. That would suit the word ''fetlock'', but the pastern is in fact a long portion of the leg immediately below the fetlock. When a woman asked him why he had made the error, Johnson, according to
Boswell, replied, "Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance."
In the 1930s,
''Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition'' accidentally documented, for four years, a supposed word "
dord
The word ''dord'' is a dictionary error in lexicography. It was accidentally created, as a ghost word, by the staff of G. and C. Merriam Company (now part of Merriam-Webster) in the '' New International Dictionary'', second edition (1934). That ...
", whose only basis was a clerical error by
the publisher.
The first edition (1987) of the ''Collins
COBUILD
COBUILD, an acronym for Collins Birmingham University International Language Database, is a British research facility set up at the University of Birmingham in 1980 and funded by HarperCollins, Collins publishers.
The facility was initially led by ...
English Language Dictionary'' contained an entry for a verb ''hink,'' which it said was conjugated ''hinks, hinking, hinked'' and which it defined as follows: "If you hink, you think hopefully and unrealistically about something." The entry is a
ghost word
A ghost word is a word published in a dictionary or similarly authoritative reference work even though it had not previously had any meaning or been used intentionally. A ghost word generally originates from a typographical or linguistic error, tak ...
—included by the editors to trap plagiarists. The wording is the result of an
in-house joke. However, some reviewers took it seriously, speculating for example that it is "clearly an error for 'think'." The word was removed from later editions.
In the early 21st century, the online and CD-ROM editions of the ''Macmillan English Dictionary'' gave two different spoken readings of the headword for the entry "George, St. – the PATRON SAINT of England": the American reading was the correct "Saint George," but the British reading was "George Street." Presumably the British narrator had been given a list of words to read and the comma after "George" was either missing or overlooked.
Although dictionaries are often expected to be flawless, most
lexicographers and people who frequently use dictionaries are keenly aware that all dictionaries contain errors. The preparation of dictionaries requires immense time, expertise and concentration, and there are never sufficient human and financial resources available to ensure complete accuracy. In the words of Johnson himself, "Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true."
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lexicographic Error
Lexicography