Ignore: just letters used to keep spacing. Stupid WordPress.
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In 1931, a word printed in “Webster’s New International Dictionary” was thought to be a noun used by physicists and chemists meaning “density.” It turned out that when hundreds of thousands of words were being arranged in preparation for the dictionary’s second edition, a card marked “D or d, cont/density” standing for the abbreviation for “density” somehow got transferred from the abbreviations pile to the actual words pile. “D or d” was wrongly typeset as the word “dord” and was defined as a synonym for density. Whoops! The mistake discovered in 1936. Although the “word” was removed from the dictionary, it continues to pop up due to the carelessness of less exacting dictionary editors.
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Bonus fact: Dord wasn’t the only mistake found in the early editions of Webster’s dictionary. Many abbreviation were accidentally mixed in with the real words before they were sifted out and placed in a special section in the back or front of the dictionary. For example, “lb” was commonly placed right after “lazy,” creating confusion and much annoyance to users.
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(via Dictionary.com and Snopes.com)
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