Phantonmation
A ghostly word in more than one way, phantomnation was defined by Webster’s 1864 American Dictionary of the English Language as an “appearance as of a phantom; illusion,” and was attributed to Alexander Pope’s translation of The Odyssey:
Phantomnation是一个名副其实的“鬼词”。1864年出版的《韦氏美语词典》将“phantomnation”定义为“鬼魂;幻觉”,并将其归因于亚历山大·波普对《奥德赛》的翻译:文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/what-are-ghost-words.html
“These solemn vows and holy offerings paid文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/what-are-ghost-words.html
“这些庄严的誓言和神圣的祭品已经兑现文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/what-are-ghost-words.html
To all the phantomnations of the dead.”文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/what-are-ghost-words.html
致所有死者的鬼魂。”文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/what-are-ghost-words.html
The real word? The no less creepy phantom-nation, a society of specters. We can blame scholar Richard Paul Jodrell for this gaffe, who, in his book The Philology of the English Language, left out hyphens in compound words.文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/what-are-ghost-words.html
这里正确的原文是phantom-nation(幽灵国家),一个同样令人毛骨悚然的幽灵社会。这个错误是学者理查德·保罗·约德雷尔制造的,他在《英语语言学》一书中将这个复合词的连字符省略了。文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/what-are-ghost-words.html
Cairbow
The curious cairbow was mentioned in an early 20th-century proof of the OED in an example sentence of “glare”: “It [the Cairbow] then suddenly squats upon its haunches, and slides along the glare-ice.”文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/what-are-ghost-words.html
20世纪初出版的《牛津英语词典》中,“glare”的例句中提到了“好奇的cairbow”:
“它(cairbow)突然蹲坐下来,沿着刺眼的冰面滑行。”文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/what-are-ghost-words.html
Cairbow? No one had heard of such thing. Was it some kind of polar creature with an affinity for ice? Did it have a big rainbow on its back?文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/what-are-ghost-words.html
Cairbow?没人听说过这个词。它是某种喜欢冰的极地生物吗?它的背上有一道大彩虹吗?
Nope. Cairbow was merely a misreading of caribou.
不,cairbow只是拼写错误的caribou(驯鹿)。
Esquivalience
The one faker by design, this spurious term, meaning “the willful avoidance of one’s official responsibilities,” materialized in the second edition of the New Oxford American Dictionary (NOAD).
这是一个故意编造的假词,意思是“故意逃避自己的职责”,出现在《新牛津美语词典》第二版中。
The word was invented by Christine Lindberg, one of the NOAD editors. The whole thing was part of the dictionary’s strategy for copyright protection.
这个词是由《新牛津美语词典》的编辑克里斯汀·林德伯格发明的。此举是该词典的一种版权保护策略。
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