The editor of the New Oxford American Dictionary has confirmed the use of fake words to track anyone copying their text. Akin to a watermark. In 1975 you could find Lillian Virginia Mountweazel in the New Columbia Encyclopedia. But there never was a Lillian Virginia Mountweazel.

“It was an old tradition in encyclopedias to put in a fake entry to protect your copyright,� Richard Steins, who was one of the volume’s editors, said the other day. “If someone copied Lillian, then we’d know they’d stolen from us.�

What did the New Yorker uncover to the be fake word in the 2001 New Oxford American Dictionary?

esquivalience—n. the willful avoidance of one’s official responsibilities . . . late 19th cent.: perhaps from French esquiver, “dodge, slink away.�

Way to dissemenate bad information!