Dictionaries are massive projects that require constant checking, and re-checking.
And given that something could easily go wrong in that process, inevitably, sometimes something does.
One error that can creep into dictionaries are things called ‘ghost words.’
These are non-words that don’t exist in the language but somehow have mistakenly made their way into the pages of quite serious, and authoritative dictionaries.
The classic example is the word (or, rather, non-word) ‘Dord.’
I’ve come across two possible explanations for this.
One says that at the head of alphabetical entries it was common for dictionaries to show the upper- and lower-case versions of the lead letter for that section.
Hence, for the D words the heading would show ‘D or d.’
And, so the story goes, one over diligent assistant transcribed this as the word ‘Dord.’
What meaning was attached to this non-existent word is unclear, although according one account it was (at one stage) defined as ‘a tropical fruit.’
However, there is another story.
This one says that in 1934 the chemistry editor at the Merriam-Webster was writing up the scientific abbreviation for ‘density’ which he wrote as either an upper- or lower-case D.
So, once again we got ‘D or d’ which was transcribed as ‘Dord’ meaning ‘scientific word for density.’
But there are other examples of ghost words.
Even the great Dr Johnson, in 1755, accidentally gave us one: ‘adventine.’
What he should have put was ‘adventive’ (meaning something that comes in from outside).
But because of his mistake a new ghost word was born.
But by 1807 his ‘ghost word’ had been taken by medical science, given a meaning, and a ghost word became a real word!
And what are the most irritating ghost words?
Those words that are spelled with a G but are mispronounced as if they ended with a K— ‘somethink’ and ‘anythink’ and similar words.
There are no such words.
They are ghost words.
The people who say them that way would never spell them in writing that way.
So, why do that do it?
I have no idea!
One of the great puzzles of the ages.
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BY THE WAY...
If you'd like to see my A-Z list of Aussie slang, you'll find it here in the Australian Geographic website -- A-Z list of Aussie slang. Here’s the link: The A-Z of Aussie slang - Australian Geographic
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