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esquivalience—n. the willful avoidance of one’s official responsibilities . . . late 19th cent.: perhaps from French esquiver, “dodge, slink away.” Entry from the Oxford American Dictionary for the purpose of foiling copyright violaters. Read all about it in the August 29 issue of the New Yorker magazine: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/050829ta_talk_alford
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Pooh-Bah
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>> Entry from the Oxford American Dictionary for the purpose of foiling copyright violaters.
Hogwash
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Pooh-Bah
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Methinks the NOAD defeats its own purpose; neither esquivalience nor esquivarience is now a mountweazel. For that matter, neither is mountweazel.
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Publishers of maps do similar things. Many years ago a friend of mine who lived in Michigan at the time sent me the highway map published by the State of Michigan. Just south of the Ohio state line were two fake towns, goblu and beatosu. Steve said the inclusion of these two towns was for copyright purposes.
TEd
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the oEd online has an exhaustively updated M-section -- no mountweazel, not even as a nonce-wd.
now, to wwftd-ize esquivalience without incurring the wroth of the oAd...
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Pooh-Bah
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>>no mountweazel, not even as a nonce-wd.
But, from the referenced New Yorker Article:
"[t]he remaining three hundred and sixty words were then vetted with a battery of references. Six potential Mountweazels emerged."
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Carpal Tunnel
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now, to wwftd-ize esquivalience without incurring the wroth of the oAd...
I do believe Faldage was *secretly hoping you'd try that.
Good to see you back, btw, Wortmeister.
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>Six potential Mountweazels emerged.
if 'mountweazel' is recognized as the term for this specific publication ploy, it isn't acknowledged by OED (or W3) -- that's all I meant.
- ron (lexicographically) obvious
which begs the question <ecch>, does the OAD have an online presence??
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Carpal Tunnel
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does the OAD have an online presence?? Well, yes: the ghost of Lord Mountweazel, obviously...
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Pooh-Bah
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>> which begs the question <ecch>, does the OAD have an online presence??
Or -- if I understand you -- as Socrates might have put it, 'is a word a word because it's in the OAD, or is it in the OAD because it's a word?'
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Pooh-Bah
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Just south of the Ohio state line were two fake towns, goblu and beatosu. Steve said the inclusion of these two towns was for copyright purposes.
Fake towns my eye! Why, Jackie and I met for a delicious lunch just the other day in Beatosu, Kentucky, and many of the University's most talented basketball players have hailed from tiny Goblu, KY.
/well not really, but we do have funny-sounding town names 'round these parts.
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addict
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the highway map published by the State of Michigan. Just south of the Ohio state line were two fake towns, goblu and beatosu. TEd, are you sure the map wasn't published by the University of Michigan? 
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Yup. It was available at tourist info centers in Michigan (and still may be for all I know). I expect I have a copy of it around somewhere; I keep the STRANGEST things, like a map of the zoo in either Melbourne or Sydney, can't remember which now, but it was a great zoo. Sigh. Someday I'll go back. I definitely want to see the capitol building in Canberra which was under construction in 86 when I was there. It had the earmarks of being one fascinating building.
I've always been fascinated by maps and I have to restrain myself when visiting downtown Asheville to keep from spending gobs of money at the antique map store there.
I even have the mapbook from when I did Ride the Rockies back in 1989.
TEd
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What's the word for 'map-lover'?
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If it isn't cartophile, it sure oughtta be.
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The pursuit of collecting, arranging, and studying cigarette-cards and similar items. So cartophilist, a person devoted to cartophily; cartophilic a.
1936 C. L. BAGNALL in Cigarette Card News Apr. 87, 30,000 people in the British Isles..collect cigarette cards... I have coined a new word for my clients and call them cartophilists. 1936 Morning Post 11 Aug. 12/6 There is a magazine entirely devoted to ‘cartophily’... For every one serious ‘cartophilist’ in 1930 there are 25 now. 1937 Cigarette Card News Apr. 120 In a mansion..the new cartophilic headquarters is to be found.
still leaving unanswered: what's a cigarette card then?
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Pooh-Bah
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thanks, ip. meanwhile, back at the ranch: chartophile, chartophilist: One who collects maps. http://snipurl.com/hbhxcf. chartographer/cartographer
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Pooh-Bah
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What anyone who is preparing to move becomes.
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Pooh-Bah
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>>preparing to move
Like "castin' off"? Ha!
No, but they should be.
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well, I've heard of castanets being called "little black beetle(s)", but "horse chestnuts?"
canasta, anyone?
formerly known as etaoin...
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chestnut : Etymology: earlier chesten nut, from Middle English chesten, chesteine, chasteine, from Middle French chastaigne, from Latin castanea, from Greek kastanea, kastanon
- M-W Unabridged (W3 online)
as to why they're noticeably collected...
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CARTOPHILY - The pursuit of collecting, arranging, and studying cigarette-cards and similar items. So cartophilist, a person devoted to cartophily; cartophilic a.
1936 C. L. BAGNALL in Cigarette Card News Apr. 87, 30,000 people in the British Isles..collect cigarette cards... I have coined a new word for my clients and call them cartophilists. 1936 Morning Post 11 Aug. 12/6 There is a magazine entirely devoted to ‘cartophily’... For every one serious ‘cartophilist’ in 1930 there are 25 now. 1937 Cigarette Card News Apr. 120 In a mansion..the new cartophilic headquarters is to be found.
A completely fabricated definition. As wsieber and others can attest, the word means "a person who collects potatoes"
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CARTOPHILY - The pursuit of ...
Duplicate post; deleted.
Sorry.
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Wouldn't it rather be "one who loves potatoes"?
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Naw. It's an adverb and it means "doing things in a potatoly manner."
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Pooh-Bah
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It is a racehorse that looks like a sack of potatos, or that is untamed and runs all over the map.
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**Sputter, hack, hack, cough, choke** Grrrr, this makes me angry. I'm just getting to this thread and the initial post just knocks my socks off.
I can't believe they do this. People use these books as references because they want to confirm a definition/spelling or they're looking to learn.
If they pitch in a fake word, how are we supposed to know that. I'd have believed it, and cited the dictionary if anybody argued.
If your source is not secure, how are you supposed to believe what they say? How do you know that somebody didn't muck around with other words? How do you know that they did their jobs properly and made sure the rest of the document was correct.
Garrghhh...walking away in frustration *)%##%!!
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Bel,
They must figure that since the word doesn't exist, you won't be looking it up -- on the other hand, if someone challenges you when you use it, why, it's right there in the dictionary!
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Pooh-Bah
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Besides, it's too long for scrabble.
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Ya, but some of us flip through the dictionary just for the fun of it.
*sigh*
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People use these books as references because they want to confirm a definition/spelling or they're looking to learn. bel, this is the exact reason I've given up Wikipedia. I was SO mad when I found out it's not necessarily reliable. 
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Pooh-Bah
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>>People use these books as references because they want to confirm a definition/spelling or they're looking to learn.
bel, this is the exact reason I've given up Wikipedia. I was SO mad when I found out it's not necessarily reliable.<<
Hold on a minute. Do you think the inclusion of a single carefully constructed mountweazel might not just indicate a high degree of professionalism and care? Might not copyright protection serve to ensure the integrity of the material? The only real harm would be to emerge with parched throat from the desert to find the well on the map was not on the ground.
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>>Hold on a minute. Do you think the inclusion of a single carefully constructed mountweazel might not just indicate a high degree of professionalism and care?
NO. It implies a selfish disregard for the user of their product. Let's protect ourselves at the expense of our reader, who turns to us for the facts.
>>Might not copyright protection serve to ensure the integrity of the material?
No. A document doesn't have integrity when it is not accurate. Making sure people don't copy you doesn't make you exact, or more reliable, it just makes you un-copy-able.
Say they didn't have "esquivalience" in the dictionary, would that make them less accurate, or more accurate? It would definitely be more accurate.
And if somebody copied them because they didn't have esquivalience, would that diminish their acuracy? No it wouldn't, not one whit.
The copier is not my concern. A cheater is a cheater and I have no truck with that. I turn to a dictionary because I believe what they tell us has merit and is exact.
If you take the trouble to use the OED, you expect it to be reliable - it's not Billy-Bob's dikshinary of werds for heaven's sake.
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>>it's not Billy-Bob's dikshinary of werds for heaven's sake<<
Exactly right. And it's only by exercising some control over reproduction that it won't move in the direction of becoming that. Or such might also be their thinking. You do have a point about disregard of the user, although I think the term, in the case of the dictionary, at least, is a bit way too strong; but that doesn't argue that they were being careless. I doubt users will be staying away in droves.
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>>>And it's only by exercising some control over reproduction that it won't move in the direction of becoming that.
I really don't understand that Insel. How does making sure nobody copies them ensure that they don't fall into mediocrity? As long as they stick to rigorous standards of exactitude and fact, everybody and his brother could copy them and it doesn’t diminish their quality in the least.
If they add fake words willy-nilly, even the one, they are specifically responsible for diminishing the veracity of the work.
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>> How does making sure nobody copies them ensure that they don't fall into mediocrity? << The same way that The Gutenberg Project ( http://gutenberg.org) has a downside. While it is responsible for the wide distribution of lots of good books, it will also be responsible for the distribution of lots of errata.* The upside of copyright, in this respect, is its literally conservative effect. I think the question is what the publishers actually hope to accomplish with these mountweazel--and how well these serve to prevent what sorts of infringements and protect reference materials generally. I don't know the answers, so I don't know whether your objection is well founded or not. I admit, though, that I was also disturbed by the disclosure. This is just how I reconciled myself to it. *similar to the "Wikipedia 'problem'"
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I doubt users will be staying away in droves.
Users may not be staying away in droves, Inselpeter, but the rest of us are sorely tempted.
Believe me!
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