>What are some examples of ghost words in use today, in English?
but that's the point; ghost words were mistakes, were exposed as such, and are NOT used today.
orientate is an example of mumpsimus.
Julian Burnside has this to say about ghost words:
These rare creatures haunt dictionaries for a time; occasionally
they escape into the real world; they differ from mumpsimus only in this, that they are created by lexicographers, and when
they are exposed they generally fade away.
Dord was, for a time, defined in Webster (1934) as meaning "density in physics or chemistry". It was entirely wrong: a
typesetter had misread "D or d, density in physics or chemistry". It is seen no more.
Howl was for a time picked up in dictionaries as a Scottish spelling of hovel. That was almost right, but not quite. The
dialect word is howf or howff - defined by the second edition OED as 'a place of resort, a haunt, a resort'. (Curious that it
should be a haunt: it gave rise to a ghost word, and is also the name of the burial ground at Dundee). Howf was thus
understood as a place where people lived; it appeared to be related to hovel; the English lexicographers have a tradition of
disdain for the Scots; and a typesetter got it wrong. So howl roamed the dictionaries for a time as a crude dwelling house.
Samuel Johnson enlivened his many triumphs with some spectacular blunders. (Asked once why he had defined pastern as
the 'knee of a horse', he replied "ignorance, madam, pure ignorance". And for his attitude to the Scots, see his definition of
"oats"). He is the father of a ghost word: foupe. His Dictionary describes it as follows:
"to FOUPE v.a. To drive with a sudden impetuosity. A word out of use
'We pronounce, by the concession of strangers, as smoothly and moderately as any of the northern nations, who foupe their words out of
the throat with fat and full spirits' Camden."
Well, he was partly right - it was certainly out of use: it had never been in use. The word as printed in Camden was soupe
(with the archaic long form of 's', the mistake was easily made). It is a dialect word with a meaning akin to swoop. Dr
Todd's edition of Johnson (1818) spotted the error and left it there, but pointed it out. The OED second edition also records
it. (It does not record Dord, but that was an American mistake). It identifies it as an error for soupe. Being thus exposed as
a ghost, but recorded anyway, makes foupe a shadow of a ghost: unique so far as I know.
Most ghost words are ephemeral; but during its brief existence in Johnson's London, foupe was exported to Barbados.
Presumably it went there as part of sailors' cant. However that may be, it came into use in Barbados, meaning the rollicking
copulation of animals (not humans). It is the sort of word politely castigated by dictionaries as (vulg.) or (not in polite use).
It is seen in the ad hoc social comments of graffiti artists and other nostalgic philologists, 200 years after its chimerical parent
faded away in England. If Barbadians compile a dictionary of their language, foupe will presumably materialize there, and
will join syllabus as a ghost legitimised at last.
OP
