Have you ever wondered whether dictionary writers sometimes make words up? It’s a fun thought: a lexicographer slipping in their own invention when no one is looking, or changing a definition to something hilarious. The reality of course is that dictionaries are the product of many hands; not only that, but they also draw on hard evidence of language in the wild. It would take a lot of for a made-up word to even make it to a first draft. But what, say, if everyone was in on it? What if a fake entry was deliberately smuggled into a dictionary and every editor turned a blind eye? That would be quite the linguistic thriller.
The reality is that fake additions are a thing, and they go by the name of ‘mountweazels’. Were you to consult the 1975 edition of the New Columbia Encyclopedia, you would find an entry for one Lillian Virginia Mountweazel: a photographer, born in Bangs, Ohio, best known for her pictures of rural American mailboxes. Tragically, the entry relates, Virginia was killed at the age of 31 by an explosion whilst on an assignment for Combustibles magazine.