Equipoise

Equipoise (pronounced ee-kwuh-poiz or ek-wuh-poiz)

(1) An equal distribution of weight; even balance; equilibrium; The relation of two weights or forces which balance each other; equilibrium; equiponderance.

(2) An alternative name for a counterpoise in certain contexts, now rarely seen outside of literary and poetic use.

(3) In medical research, as clinical equipoise, or the principle of equipoise, a term to describe certain aspects of the ethical basis for clinical trials.

(4) In commercial pharmacy, the trademark for Hydroxyzine, an antihistamine and Boldenone Undecylenate, an anabolic steroid, once prescribed for human use, now restricted to veterinary applications, mostly equine.

(5) Of or pertaining to equilibrioception, the state of being balanced or in equilibrium.

1625–1635: An English coining which borrowed from both Latin and French, following the mid sixteenth century phrase "equal poise", the construct being equi + poise.  The prefix equi (which existed also as equ if preceding a vowel), was a word-forming element meaning "equal” from the Latin aequi, a combining form of aequus (equal, even).  Poise was from the Anglo-Norman poise (measure of weight), from the Anglo-Norman pois, from the Middle French pois (weight).

Clinical Equipoise

The term clinical equipoise, (also known within the medical research community as the principle of equipoise), was used first in 1987 by Benjamin Freedman (1951-1997), professor of medicine in the Biomedical Ethics Unit at McGill University, Montreal.  It provides a construct for the ethical framework of medical research involving the assignment of patients to different treatment streams in clinical trials.  An ethical dilemma exists in clinical trials if a researcher has cause to believe the treatment in one stream of a trial is significantly out-performing others.  Although it’s something of a deliberate scientific fiction, trials should be designed on the basis of a null hypothesis; that there should exist no evidence beyond the indicative that the intervention being trialed will result in better results than existing treatments or no treatment at all.  As a trial proceeds, findings may provide sufficient evidence to convince the investigator of the intervention’s efficacy and once a certain threshold of evidence is reached, uncertainty no longer exists, thereby creating an ethical imperative for the investigator to provide the superior intervention to all participants.  Being a thing applied to clinical work, it’s therefore not an abstract theory but, given the size, duration and complexity of many trials, it can be difficult to define exactly, or even vaguely, when the threshold has been reached.

Equipoise is one of the brand-names used for boldenone undecylenate (also as boldenone undecenoate.  It is an androgen and anabolic steroid (AAS) medication intended for use in in veterinary medicine (predominately equine) but in the 1970s it began to be used by humans, usually to enhance physical characteristics.  It remains available for veterinary use where it highly regarded but in most markets it's a controlled drug and use by humans is via the illicit market.  

Misspeak

Misspeak (pronounced mis-speek)

(1) To speak, utter, or pronounce incorrectly.

(2) To speak inaccurately, inappropriately, or too hastily.

(3) A euphemism for a lie, usually deployed after one is caught.

1150–1200: The construct was mis- + speak.  Mis was from the Middle English mis-, from the Old English mis-, from the Proto-Germanic missa- (wrongly, badly), from the primitive Indo-European mitto (mutual, reciprocal), from the primitive Indo-European meyth- (to replace, switch, exchange, swap).  It was cognate with the Scots, Dutch, Swedish & Icelandic mis and the German mis & miss.  Related too was the French més- & mé- (mis-), from the Old French mes- (mis-), from the Frankish mis- & missa- (mis-), all from the same Proto-Germanic source.  Speak was from the Middle English speken (to speak), from the Old English specan (to speak), an alteration of the earlier sprecan (to speak), from the Proto-West Germanic sprekan, from the Proto-Germanic sprekaną (to speak, make a sound), from the primitive Indo-European spreg- (to make a sound, utter, speak).  The spelling misspeken was used in the fourteenth century to convey the meaning “say amiss", “to say sinful things” & "speak insultingly (of)”.  From the 1590s, it acquired also the meaning “to pronounce wrongly” and by 1890, to "speak otherwise than according to one's intentions”.  Related also was the Old English missprecan (to grumble; murmur).  The derived forms are misspoke, misspoken & misspeaking.

Speak, misspeak and damned misspeak

Misspeak exists in two senses.  The first is to use mispronounce something or use an incorrect word or phrase.  An example was when Warren Harding (1865-1921; US President 1921-1923), during the 1920 presidential campaign, used “normalcy” instead of “normality”.  The section of the speech with the offending word was almost aggressively alliterative…

“America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.”

… so in saying "normalcy" he may have misspoken or perhaps Harding liked the word; questioned afterwards he said he found it in a dictionary which probably was true although whether his discovery came before or after the speech wasn't explored.  Although Harding’s choice was much-derided at the time, normalcy had certainly existed since at least 1857, originally as a technical term from geometry meaning the "mathematical condition of being at right angles, state or fact of being normal in geometry" but subsequently it had appeared in print as a synonym of normality on several occasions.  Still, it was hardly in general use though Harding gave it a boost and it’s not since gone extinct, now with little complaint except from the most linguistically fastidious who insist the use in geometry remains the only meaning and all subsequent uses are mistakes.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.  

The other meaning of misspeak is as a euphemism for a lie, usually deployed after one is caught and, for politicians, it’s a handy way technically to admit mendacity without actually having to use the distasteful word "lie".  Crooked Hillary Clinton, after years of fudging, was forced to admit she “misspoke” when claiming that to avoid sniper-fire, she and her entourage “…just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base” when landing at a Bosnian airport in 1996.  She admitted she “misspoke” only after a video was released of her walking down the airplane’s stairs to be greeted by a little girl who presented her with a bouquet of flowers.  Even her admission was constructed with weasel words: “…if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement”.  That seemed to clear things up and the matter is now recorded in the long history of crooked Hillary Clinton's untruthfulness as "snipergate".

Crooked Hillary in the Balkans, 1996.

Bloviate

Bloviate (pronounced bloh-vee-yet)

Pompously to speak or discourse at length in a boastful manner.

1857: A coining in US English, a construction in pseudo-Latin, based on deviate on the pattern of blow (in the senses of “a blowhard” (to boast)) + -ate.  Blow was from the Middle English blowen, from the Old English blāwan (to blow, breathe, inflate, sound), from the Proto-West Germanic blāan, from the Proto-Germanic blēaną (to blow) (linked to the modern German blähen), from the primitive Indo-European bhleh- (to swell, blow up) (linked to the Latin flō (to blow) and the Old Armenian բեղուն (bełun) (fertile).  The suffix -ate was a word-forming element used in forming nouns from Latin words ending in -ātus, -āta, & -ātum (such as estate, primate & senate).  Those that came to English via French often began with -at, but an -e was added in the fifteenth century or later to indicate the long vowel.  It can also mark adjectives formed from Latin perfect passive participle suffixes of first conjugation verbs -ātus, -āta, & -ātum (such as desolate, moderate & separate).  Again, often they were adopted in Middle English with an –at suffix, the -e appended after circa 1400; a doublet of –ee.

Bloviate was noted in the US in 1890 by a visiting English lexicographer who traced the origins to 1857 as a Midwestern (apparently in Ohio where it meant "to talk aimlessly and boastingly) word which gained the sense of “to indulge high falutin' language” when applied to politicians.  Bloviate was itself thus something of a bloviation because it was a way of saying “windbag” or “blowhard” with a Latin suffix lending a classical flavor.  It was apparently most used (at least in print; casual oral use would have been more prolific) of politicians (predictably fertile ground one suspects) but it faded from use by the early twentieth century, only to be revived during the administration of Warren Harding (1865–1923; US president 1921-1923) who quickly became notorious for his tangled, ornate and occasionally incomprehensible prose.  The biographical evidence suggests Harding reserved his bloviatory ways for his public persona, his language at the poker table as direct as is expected at such a place, something confirmed in the memoir of one of his many mistresses.  Harding of course is associated also with his alleged invention of “normalcy”, claimed to be a mistake during a speech laden with alliterative flourishes in which he said "not nostrums, but normalcy", the claim being he intended to use “normality”.

“America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.”

In saying "normalcy" he may have misspoken (ie a mistake rather than as a synonym for lie as crooked Hillary Clinton uses the word) or perhaps Harding liked the word; questioned afterwards he said he found it in a dictionary which probably was true although whether his discovery came before or after the speech wasn't explored.  Harding’s choice was much-derided at the time, normalcy had certainly existed since at least 1857, originally as a technical term from geometry meaning the "mathematical condition of being at right angles, state or fact of being normal in geometry" but subsequently it had appeared in print as a synonym of normality on several occasions.  Still, it was hardly in general use though Harding gave it a boost and it’s not since gone extinct, now with little complaint except from the linguistically fastidious.  Anyway, at the time it did him little harm.  The speech was delivered during the 1920 presidential election and Harding was elected in a landslide, the Republican ticket taking the Electoral College 404-127 with 60.4 against 34.1% of the popular vote.  In an example of how the electoral map has changed over a century, in 1920 the Democratic Party’s successes were almost exclusively south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

The political re-alignment in the US, 1920-2020; Democrats are blue, Republicans red.  

So electoral behavior in the US has changed in a century but the rhetorical habits of politicians probably haven't and bloviate made its second comeback in the 1990s.  Apparently the combination of the emergence of Newt Gingrich et al as neo-bloviators and the novel medium of the internet spread the word, giving it a niche, first on the bulletin boards and later on blogs, twitter and social media as technology unfolded, the 24/7 news cycle and the proliferation of political commentators meaning the ranks swelled.  In every electoral cycle since 1994, bloviators have been identified and shamed or celebrated as required.  Harding was at least self-aware, proud of his skill at “speaking as long as the occasion warrants and saying nothing” but still annoyed critics like the humorist HL Mencken (1880-1956) who dismissed the content of Harding’s English as a “loud burble of words fit only for morons and small-town yokels” although even he acknowledged the technique was so honed that “a sort of grandeur creeps into it.”

Noted bloviator Newt Gingrich (b 1943; speaker of the US House of Representatives 1995-1999 (right)) with Joe Biden (b1942; US president since 2021 (left)).  Biden now doesn’t so much bloviate as ramble and meander.

It was the idea of “fake grandeur” that saw Barack Obama (b 1961, US president 2009-2017) labeled a bloviator by some but that was as misleading as it was to call Donald Trump “the bloviating billionaire”.  Obama at his worst talked what Lord Beaverbrook (1879-1964) would have called “high falutin' nonsense” but was usually quite direct.  Trump too was direct and never tried, like George W Bush (b 1946; US president 2001-2009) or Sarah Palin (b 1964) to lend gravitas to the message with fancy (an in some cases invented) words in the manner of a Norman Mailer (1923-2007), William F Buckley (1925-2008), Gore Vidal (1925-2012), Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997), Conrad Black (b 1944), Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) and David Foster Wallace (1962-2008), bloviators all.

Noted bloviators William F Buckley (left) and Gore Vidal (right) in one of their famous debates on the ABC network in 1968.

Conducted in the milieu that was the drama of the 1968 Republican and Democratic Party conventions, ABC envisaged it as an exchange between intellectuals of the right and left but what made it a ratings hit was Vidal calling Buckley a "crypto-Nazi" to which he responded, "Listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I'll sock you in your goddamn face and you'll stay plastered".  Overnight, it transformed the way the broadcast media covered politics in the US and it’s from this "debate" that the descent began towards ideological confrontation and partisan commentary.  In political science, there had long been the "politics as theatre" school of thought but it was from this debate that the packaging of politics as entertainment was allowed to evolve undisguised.

Trump is better thought of as a rodomont, the essence of rhodomontade being vain boasting, bragging and blustering without any suggestion of the use of obscure or big words; the undercurrent of everything Trump says is “I’m really rich” and that’s all that matters.  It dates from the 1610s (the earlier rodomontado noted in the 1590s), and was from the French rodomontade, a reference to the vain boasting of Rodomonte, a character who appears in two epic poems of the Italian Renaissance: Ludovico Ariosto's (1474–1533) Orlando Furioso (1516) and Matteo Maria Boiardo's (1440–1494) Orlando Innamorato (1483-1495).  In the dialectal Italian, the name translates literally as "one who rolls (away) the mountain" and it came by the 1680s to be used as a verb imparting the idea of “one who boasts, brags and talks big".

A noted rodomont with a noted bloviatrix: Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) with crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947), 2016 presidential election debate.

A non standard variation is bloviatrix (literally “a woman who bloviates”) and now of course it would be less incorrect to call one a bloviator but it was always intended as a jocular coining.  The –trix suffix was from the primitive Indo-European -trih, from -tḗr and was cognate with the Sanskrit suffix -त्री (-trī) (as in जनित्री (janitrī) (mother) though most dictionaries now tag –trix as dated.  It was appended usually to create female agent nouns and for masculine agent nouns ending in -tor, the feminine equivalent ending in -trix was historically preferred (and etymologically consistent) but social forces now operate with some severity in English and the modern practice is to adopt either gender-neutral terms, even other feminine suffixes (-a, -ess, -ette & -ine) falling from favor.  It endures where the meaning conveyed is so specific that any substitution would be either misleading or just silly, dominatrix the most obvious example and it’s usually the case these derived terms were borrowed directly from Latin, rather than formed in English (where in recent centuries the creations tended variously to be jocular, poetic or derogatory).  The Latin forms were just part of the lexicon such as cantrīx (female singer), based on cantor (male singer), from canō (I sing), tōnstrīx (female barber) based on tōnsor (male barber), from tondeō (I shear, shave) & meretrīx (prostitute (literally “she who earns”), from mereō (I merit, deserve, earn).  The Latin suffix was picked up by other European languages including the Catalan -triu, the French –trice, the Italian –trice and the Portuguese & Spanish –triz.

Bloviate is also jocular slang in the engine-building community.  Because of the phonetic similarity to “blown V8” (ie a V8 engine with forced (super- or turbo-charged) induction), it’s used to refer to such machinery.  The comparative and superlative forms presumably are “very bloviated” & “most bloviated” respectively, based on the extent of atmospheric boost delivered.

A noted bloviate: Mopar Direct Connection 1500 HEMI Crate Engine (Part Number: DSR1500-DC) @ US$59,990.  The 1500 is “most bloviated”.

Dodge's Hellephants (as crate engines) are 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) V8s, based on the Gen III HEMI V8 in five versions ranging from 900 to 1500hp, all using DSR’s 3.0 litre (183 cubic inch) IHI supercharger and available with either cast-iron or aluminium blocks.  Not remotely lawful for use in the US in road-registered vehicles built after 1975, most are used in some form of competition and although such things are thought by many to be in their last days, the crate engines may remain available until (1) they’re outlawed, (2) demand falls to the point production is no longer viable or (3) pressure-groups force Chrysler to stop.  As recently as twenty-odd years ago, there was much nostalgia about "the way things used to be done" but, on any objective measure, the Hellephants are better than anything which came before.  Despite that, some things will always be cherished for the flaws and quirks which give them their character and for some, the old ways, while not better, will remain more enchanting.    

Refudiate

Refudiate (pronounced ri-fyoo-dee-yet)

To reject as untrue or refuse to acknowledge (non-standard).

Late 1800s: The construct was ref(ute) + (rep)udiate.  Refudiate (the third-person singular simple present is refudiates, the present participle refudiating & the simple past and past participle is refudiated) is a verb (used with object).  It is regarded by most as a non-standard form. Refute was from the Latin refūtō (refute, repudiate), the construct being re- + futo (to beat).  In its original Roman form it meant either (1) to prove something to be false or incorrect or (2) to claim that something is false or incorrect.  However, in English, many authorities assert that only the first meaning applies and that something can be thought refuted only if whatever matter is being discussed is absolutely proved false; it is not enough merely to assert a refutation, a successful refutation is the quality of the assertion.  Refute is often confused with rebut; a rebuttal, in formal debate terms, is a counter-refutation, and it also has a specific legal sense, though like refutation, the word has taken on the informal and disputed meaning of denial.  Politicians and others are much given to saying they refute things by which they really mean “deny” but the practice seems here to stay.  Repudiate was from the Latin repudiātus, from repudiō (I cast off, reject), from repudium (divorce).  It means either (1) to reject the truth or validity of; to deny or (2), to refuse to have anything to do with; to disown.  It also has a (now less common) technical meaning in the jargon of commerce “to refuse to pay or honor (a debt)”.  Refudiate is a non-standard verb and the derived forms are thus also irregular: Refudiation & refudiator are nouns and refudiated & refudiating are verbs; the noun plural is refudiations.

The re- prefix was from the Middle English re-, from the circa 1200 Old French re-, from the Latin re- & red- (back; anew; again; against), from the primitive Indo-European wre & wret- (again), a metathetic alteration of wert- (to turn).  It displaced the native English ed- & eft-.  A hyphen is not normally included in words formed using this prefix, except when the absence of a hyphen would (1) make the meaning unclear, (2) when the word with which the prefix is combined begins with a capital letter, (3) when the word with which the is combined with begins with another “re”, (4) when the word with which the prefix is combined with begins with “e”, (5) when the word formed is identical in form to another word in which re- does not have any of the senses listed above.  As late as the early twentieth century, the dieresis was sometimes used instead of a hyphen (eg reemerge) but this is now rare except when demanded for historic authenticity or if there’s an attempt deliberately to affect the archaic.  Re- may (and has) been applied to almost any verb and previously irregular constructions appear regularly in informal use; the exception is all forms of “be” and the modal verbs (can, should etc).  Although it seems certain the origin of the Latin re- is the primitive Indo-European wre & wret- (which has a parallel in Umbrian re-), beyond that it’s uncertain and while it seems always to have conveyed the general sense of "back" or "backwards", there were instances where the precise was unclear and the prolific productivity in Classical Latin tended make things obscure.

There is in English a school of thought which acknowledges refudiate as a genuine word, the argument being that many words have been created thus and an infrequency of use does not mean a word is not a correct construction, just that it may be considered rare, obsolete or extinct.  Refudiate of course is no pure-bred descendent from the classical languages of antiquity but apparently an inadvertently created blend of refute and repudiate, probably of nineteenth century origin.  Had it been a deliberate coinage to fill some gap in the lexicon, the guardians of English may have been more welcoming but in merging two words which both have disputed meanings, refudiate added nothing but another layer of potential misunderstanding.

Refudiate is often associated with Sarah Palin (b 1964; governor of Alaska 2006-2009 & 2008 Republican US vice presidential nominee) and she was apparently the most recent to use the word but her lapsus linguae (slips of the tongue) were actually quite rare and one suspects criticism of her was excessive given it was after a word with a history stretching back over a century and it’s been done before.  Warren Harding (1865-1921; US President 1921-1923), during the 1920 presidential campaign, used “normalcy” instead of “normality”.  The section of the speech with the offending word was almost aggressively alliterative…

“America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.”

… so in saying "normalcy" he may have misspoken or perhaps Harding liked the word; questioned afterwards he said he found it in a dictionary which probably was true although whether his discovery came before or after the speech wasn't explored.  Although Harding’s choice was much-derided at the time, normalcy had certainly existed since at least 1857, originally as a technical term from geometry meaning the "mathematical condition of being at right angles, state or fact of being normal in geometry" but subsequently it had appeared in print as a synonym of normality on several occasions.  Still, it was hardly in general use though Harding gave it a boost and it’s not since gone extinct, now with little complaint except from the most linguistically fastidious.  The prospects for refudiate don’t seem as hopeful but who knows?  It may catch on in the Republican Party as a statement of anti-elitist inverted linguistic snobbery.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

Politicians often mangle the language and George W Bush (b 1946; US president 2001-2009) was so prolific he attracted those who created lists of “bushisms” although the actual coining of words was rare.  He started as he probably didn’t intend to go on, on election night 2000 inventing “misunderestimated” but it seems “ridiculoustic” and “misunfortunistically” were apocryphal.  Most of the Bushisms were either malapropisms or just tangled syntax but one must be sympathetic.  Unlike those who sit at keyboards, able to correct every mistake and polish every sentence, those who speak to live audience, do so sometimes without notes so errors are inevitable.  George W Bush certainly seems to have made more mistakes with the English language than most (including a great many non-native speakers) but extemporaneous speech is a harder art than the most accomplished can make it appear.  The word Bushism caught on but apparently, among White House staffers, the original term was “W-isms” but that never became a thing, probably because it was phonetically inefficient in the same way the three-syllable “world wide web” was always preferred to “www” which demanded nine.  Some tried to make “dub-dub-dub” happen but it never did.

Even when done correctly, the myth of mistake can arise.  Ich bin ein Berliner (I am a Berliner) was a speech delivered in West Berlin on 26 June 1963 by John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963), one of the most famous of the high Cold War.  The words spoken by Kennedy were:

“Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was 'Civis Romanus sum' [I am a Roman citizen].  Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is 'Ich bin ein Berliner'."

Plate of Pfannkucken.

Years later, because of some dialogue in Len Deighton's (b 1929) 1983 spy novel Berlin Game, the myth began that Kennedy’s words were understood by his audience as “I am a jam-filled donut”, based on the fact that in Germany, a “Berliner” is a jam (jelly) filled donut.  However, it wasn’t then a use of the word at all common in Berlin; to Berliners, the sweet treat is a Pfannkucken.  The story however caught on and went viral in a pre-internet sort of way, the imprimatur of authenticity granted by sources as authoritative as Newsweek, the New York Times and Alastair Cooke’s (1908-2004) (Letter from America (1946-2004).

Zoozve

Zoozve (pronounced zooz-vee or zooz-vay)

The orthodox clipping of 524522 Zoozve (provisional designation 2002 VE68), a temporary quasi-satellite (or quasi-moon and technically an asteroid) of the planet Venus.

2024 (sort of): From an accidental coining by a graphic artist preparing a rendering of a stylized poster of the solar system, the asteroid's provisional designation (2002VE) misread and written as ZOOZVE (the text of the descriptors all in upper case).  Another suggested pronunciation is jeuj-vey (as in zhuzh) but zooz-vee & zooz-vay seem more mnemonic.  Zoozve is a proper noun; the noun plural is zoozves.  Although Zoozve is a unique object, in the solar system, doubtlessly there are many more quasi-moons and zoozve (with an initial lower case) may emerge as the generic term, thus the need for the noun plural.

The Poster.

Zoozve first came to wider public attention early in 2024 when the tale was revealed in a podcast produced by Latif Nasser (b 1986) of New York public radio station WNYC’s RadioLab.  The story was triggered when he first noticed a detail on a poster of the solar system: a moon of Venus called Zoozve.  There are many moons in the solar system but Dr Nasser holds a PhD from Harvard's History of Science department and knew the astronomical orthodoxy was that Venus “has no moons”, something some rapid research confirmed so he contacted Elizabeth Landau (b 1975), a member of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) communications, his not unreasonable assumption being if anyone should know about what’s in space, it was the folk at NASA.  After consulting the charts, Ms Landau concluded there was such an object but that it wasn’t a moon; it was a quasi-moon which, discovered in 2002, after 2004 when its dual orbits were first tracked, enjoyed the distinction of being the first quasi-moon ever found.  What appeared on the poster as “Zoozve” was the graphic artist’s misreading of “2002VE”, a designation typical of the naming conventions used in astronomy.

Poster close-up.

The distinction between a moon and a quasi moon is the former have “a primary anchor”: Although the Earth’s Moon of course revolves around the Sun as well as this planet, the solar relationship is a by-product of Earth’s gravitational pull.  A quasi-moon is one with two distinct paths of rotation, one around its (temporary) planet and one around the Sun.  There are implications in that beyond the cosmic phenomenon being a scientific curiosity: quasi-moons eventually will become detached (astronomers seem to like “flung-off” which is more illustrative) which means they could become objects which could crash into Earth.  Zoozve is some 240m (785 feet) in diameter and the conventional calculation is an impact with Earth would release energy equivalent to some 69,000 A-bombs with the yield (15 kilotons of TNT) of the device dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.  Zoozve is in the last few hundred years of its eight millennia-odd attachment to Venus and modelling suggests it is unlikely to hit earth when it does become adrift but such calculations are acknowledged to be “ultimately imprecise” and, as mentioned, there are doubtless many more; the universe is a violent and destructive place.  Quasi-moons had been speculated to exist for almost a century before 2002VE was named and since then it’s been discovered Earth has a few of its own.

2002VE was discovered in 2002 by Brian Skiff (b 1953), a research scientist at Arizona’s Lowell Observatory in Arizona and because he made no attempt to give it a “proper” name, it was allocated the procedural 2002VE86 (“proper” names granted usually only after an object has attracted sufficient interest to generate academic papers).  Dr Nasser however was so charmed by the tale of 2002VE that he submitted an application to the Working Group Small Bodies Nomenclature (WGSBN) of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) the committee responsible for assigning names to minor planets and comets.  What he wanted was for 2002VE to become Zoozve but it transpired there were naming "rules" including:

(1) 16 characters or less in length

(2) Preferably one word

(3) Pronounceable (in some language)

(4) Non-offensive

(5) Not too similar to an existing name of a Minor Planet or natural Planetary satellite.

(6) The names of individuals or events principally known for political or military activities are unsuitable until 100 years after the death of the individual or the occurrence of the event.

(7) Names of pet animals are discouraged

(8) Names of a purely or principally commercial nature are not allowed.

(9) Objects that approach or cross Earth's orbit (so called Near Earth Asteroids) are generally given mythological names.

Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, Florida.

Because of 2002VE’s proximity to earth, the need to have the name rooted in mythology was obviously the most onerous hurdle to overcome and it is a common-sense stipulation, imposed to avoid controversy on Earth: Imagine the fuss if quasi-moon 524522 Lindsay Lohan ended up crashing into Trump Tower or Mar-a-Lago.  There would be litigation.

Added to which, the IAU have the reputation of being a bunch of humorless cosmic clerks, something like the Vogons ("...not actually evil, but bad-tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous.") in Douglas Adams’ (1952–2001) Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979-1992): they were the crew who decided Pluto should no longer be thought a planet because of some tiresome technical distinction.  Although lacking the lovely rings of Saturn (a feature shared on a smaller scale by Jupiter, Uranus & Neptune), Pluto is the most charming of all because it’s so far away; desolate, lonely and cold, it's the solar system’s emo.  If for no other reason, it should be a planet in tribute to the scientists who, for decades during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, calculated possible positions and hunted for the elusive orb.  In an example of Donald Rumsfeld's (1932–2021; US secretary of defense 1975-1977 & 2001-2006) “unknown knowns”, the proof was actually obtained as early as 1915 but it wasn’t until 1930 that was realized.  In an indication of just how far away Pluto lies, since the 1840s when equations based on Newtonian mechanics were first used to predict the position of the then “undiscovered” planet, it has yet to complete even one orbit of the Sun, one Plutonian year being 247.68 years long.  Unromantic, the IAU remains unmoved.  Still, there have been exceptions to the rule and it emerged some of the “rules” are actually “guidelines” and the WGSBN was so impressed by the serendipitous tale that a majority of the committee’s eleven voting members cast their ballots for Zoozve so, on 5 February 2024, Radiolab was able to announce the IAU officially had re-designated 2002VE as 524522 Zoozve.

Truly unique words (in the sense of one-off spellings) happen for many reasons.  Those intended for global use as trademarked company or product names really do have to be unique and sufficient different to just about every other word to ensure there are no legal maneuverings contesting their registration which is how we ended up with “Optus” (used since 1991 by the Australian telecommunications company (TelCo) which is now a subsidiary of Singapore-based TelCo Singtel) and Stellantis (a conglomerate created by the merger of the Italian Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) and the French PSA Group (comprising the Peugeot, Citroën, DS, Opel and Vauxhall brands)).  While on first hearing, to many, Optus and Stellantis probably sounded like mistakes, some words really were just the result of error.  Apron (an article of clothing worn over the front of the torso and at least part of the legs and donned by (1) cooks, butchers and others as protection from spills and (2) Freemasons as part of their regalia worn during their cultish rituals was from the Middle English naperoun & napron, from the Old French napperon, a diminutive of nappe (tablecloth), from the Latin mappa (napkin).  “Napron” became “apron” by the process of linguistic assimilation (ie “a napron” becoming “apron” because of the evolution of pronunciation.

Some become legion as accidental coinings only for it to turn out there’s a pedigree.  Warren Harding (1865-1921; US President 1921-1923), during the 1920 presidential campaign, used “normalcy” instead of “normality” after a George W Bush-like (George XLIII, b 1946; US president 2001-2009) mangling of the written text, something understandable because the section with the offending word was almost aggressively alliterative:

“America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.”

In saying "normalcy" he may have misspoken or perhaps Harding liked the word; questioned afterwards he said he found it in a dictionary which probably was true although whether his discovery came before or after the speech wasn't explored.  Although Harding’s choice was much-derided at the time, normalcy had certainly existed since at least 1857, originally as a technical term from geometry meaning the "mathematical condition of being at right angles, state or fact of being normal in geometry" but subsequently it had appeared in print as a synonym of normality on several occasions.  Still, it was hardly in general use though Harding gave it a boost and it’s not since gone extinct, now with little complaint except from the most linguistically fastidious who insist the use in geometry remains the only meaning and all subsequent uses are mistakes.

Mountweazel

Mountweazel (pronounced mount-wee-zuhl)

Factitious material deliberately included in a publication as a “copyright trap”, allowing identification of plagiarism and potential violations of copyright.

1975: A definition by Henry Alford (b 1962) which appeared in a 1975 edition of The New Yorker, referencing an entry in the fourth edition (1975) of the New Columbia Encyclopedia, involving the fictitious Lillian Virginia Mountweazel, said to have died in an explosion while on assignment for the just as fanciful “Combustibles” magazine.  Mountweazel was not a legitimate family name, the neologism coined by Karen Tweedy-Holmes (b 1942), then an editor for the encyclopedia, the purpose being a fictional biographical entry for the imaginary Lillian Virginia Mountweazel.  For all purposes (other than the doomed heroine), mountweasel is used without an initial capital.  Mountweazel is a noun; the noun plural is mountweazels.

Ms Tweedy-Holmes (there can have been few finer names for a lexicographer) described her tragic heroine as an American fountain designer turned photographer, born in 1942 in Bangs, Ohio and most noted for her commissioned series of images of the mailboxes of rural America, her death said to have come in 1973.  Ms Tweedy-Holmes authoritative (and wholly bogus) biographical entry for the late Ms Mountweazel read: “Mountweazel, Lillian Virginia, 1942–1973, American photographer, b. Bangs, Ohio.  Turning from fountain design to photography in 1963, Mountweazel produced her celebrated portraits of the South Sierra Miwok in 1964.  She was awarded government grants to make a series of photo-essays of unusual subject matter, including New York City buses, the cemeteries of Paris and rural American mailboxes.  The last group was exhibited extensively abroad and published as Flags Up! (1972).  Mountweazel died at 31 in an explosion while on assignment for Combustibles magazine.”  The coining was for the purpose of a “copyright trap”, in this context an apparently legitimate dictionary entry structurally and stylistically indistinguishable from thousands of others, the idea being that were another publication to include a “Lillian Virginia Mountweazel” entry with the same “facts”, that obviously would be a plagiarism and potentially a breach of copyright.

Combustibles magazine (special issue, 4 June, 1973).

Ms Mountweazel may never have lived but in death is memorialized in the Lillian Virginia Mountweazel Research Collection which includes an “extensive collection of Combustibles Magazine” covers, some editions including her assignments, notably “the whimsical history of fireworks” and “disturbing revelations” about Nazi rocket scientist Wernher von Braun (1912–1977) who in 1945 had been employed by the US government, suddenly rather more interested in the missiles the German could help them build rather than his wartime use of slave labor.  There’s also the revelation the Flags Up! project, although promoted as the USPS (US Postal Service) using “captivating imagery” to demonstrate how the new ZIP codes enhanced “the efficiency and modernization of the postal system”, actually was funded by the CCF (Congress for Cultural Freedom), a CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) “front organization” used during the Cold War to produce anti-Soviet propaganda.  The “messaging” in Flags Up! was to show the way freedom of thought and the expression of ideas was allowed freely to flow between Americans, however remote they might be.  Of course, also included is the “special issue” of Combustibles (4 June, 1973) in which was announced the death the previous day of Ms Mountweazel, killed in the crash of a Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 SST (supersonic transport) passenger airliner during the 1973 Paris Air Show at Le Bourget Airport.  In the accident, all six crew members died along with eight in the nearby village of Goussainville, Val-d'Oise where Ms Mountweasel had been researching “the negative health effects of sound pollution in communities near major international airports.”  After her death, photojournalism scholar Pierre Menard, acknowledged Ms Mountweazel as “one of the most important in the world of pyromaniac publishing.”  Pierre Menard was also factitious, the name borrowed from Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote (Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote), a short story by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986).

Official Journal of the Institute of Explosives Engineers, March 2026 edition.  It would seem women involved in “blowing-up stuff” prefer to wear sensible shoes which seems wise.

While there was no “Combustibles” magazine (although there would seem to be a need for one), for students of such things or enthusiasts of the art & science of “blowing-up stuff”, the (IEE) Institute of Explosives Engineers (Voice of the Explosive Industries) publishes the quarterly Official Journal of the Institute of Explosives Engineers, currently distributed to a membership of some 2,000 “highly qualified engineers and specialists” involved in blowing-up stuff.  Additionally, copies are made available to selected academics, professional institutions and those in the business (of blowing-up stuff).  As well as academic papers, features and articles, the journal functions as a trade publication with information and reviews of new products and services.  The editors welcome submissions relevant to blowing-up stuff and, if appropriate, prior to publication, will submit texts for professional peer review.  The next International Explosives Conference will be held between 16-18 June, 2026 at the Parkgate Hotel in Cardiff, Wales and the institute recommends the early booking of hotel rooms because on the evening of the 16^th, Take That (an English pop group formed in Manchester in 1990) will be performing their Circus Live show at the city’s Principality Stadium.

A synonym of mountweazel is the German Nihilartikel, said to have appeared in 2003 as a hoax in the German-language Wikipedia in 2003 and later picked up by the English version from which it spread through blogs, print publications and such, these serving as “references” appearing to legitimate subsequent use.  The construct of Nihilartikel (being a noun, if used in the original German, with an initial upper case) was the Latin nihil (nothing), from nihilum (from ne- (not) +‎ hīlum (the least bit)) + the German Artikel (article) (from the Middle High German artikel, from the Latin articulus.  This is defined (in the jargon of Wikipedia) as a type of citogenesis (a circular form of citation where various sources report each other, creating a false impression of reliability).  The construct being cit(e) +‎ -o- +‎ -genesis, citogenesis was in 2011 coined by US engineer Randall Munroe (b 1984), presumably on the model of the homophone cytogenesis (the formation, development and variation of cells), the construct being cyto- + genesis.  Cyto- (“cell” as used in biology) was a learned borrowing from the Ancient Greek κύτος (kútos) (container, receptacle) and genesis (origin, start; point (in time) at which something comes into being). came via Latin from the Ancient Greek γένεσις (génesis).  Cite (in this context “to quote; to repeat, to make mention of; to list”) was from the Old French citer, from the Latin citare (to cause to move, excite, summon) and frequentative of ciēre (to rouse, excite, call).  So, just as cytogenesis describes cells being formed and variations emerging from components, in citogenesis what is happening to the assembly of “apparent (but erroneous) facts” with “authenticity verified” on the basis of other “apparent (but erroneous) facts that gained their “apparent veracity” merely from the frequency of citation.

The Pentagon Papers.  In 1971, the USSC (US Supreme Court) ruled 6-3 against granting the Nixon (Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US VPOTUS 1953-1961 & POTUS 1969-1974)) administration an injunction preventing further publication excerpts of the documents by the New York Times & The Washington Post, holding the government’s attempt to invoke “prior restraint” violated the First Amendment (freedom of the press) of the constitution and the claim of a threat to national security was not in this case sufficiently justified to allow suppression of the press.  It’s interesting to speculate how today’s USSC would rule on the same facts.

For other purposes, there are variants of the “copyright trap”.  Organizations wishing to detect the source of “leaks” (documents being photocopied and given to unauthorized recipients) would sometimes make visually almost imperceptible changes (an additional space, a character in a slightly different font etc) in certain copies, meaning an analysis of a “leaked copy” could isolate the source.  That obviously depended on the existence of relatively few original copies but that is the nature of leaked material.  The digitization of documents of course made copying and leaking not only quicker and easier but also made possible grabbing data on a huge scale.  While in 1969 Dr Daniel Ellsberg (1931–2023) had to spend several evenings alone with one of Rand Corporation’s photocopiers to duplicate the 7000-odd pages that became “the Pentagon Papers”, by the time Edward Snowden (b 1983) and Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning (b 1987) were stealing US government data by the gigabyte, all they needed was a USB stick onto which stuff silently was copied as they went about their paid work.  All digital copies of a document are of course functionally identical and even metadata which can reveal something about the copying (such as a date stamp) can be edited so what sometimes was done was the insertion of something hidden which could be detected only at the software level and not visually.  The best known was the “Alt + 255 trick”, a keyboard combination which created the NBSP (non-breaking space) Unicode character U+00A0.  Visually indistinguishable from the standard gap (U+0020) created by a tap of the space bar, the location could be detected using certain text editors so, correctly implemented, it would be a useful device for tracing sources of leaks.  However, “software tricks” can be detected by other software which is why crooked Hillary Clinton’s (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) legal team (a well-resourced and busy crew) insisted on printing out thousands of E-mails because of fears the investigators exploring the (still not adequately explained) “servergate” scandal might detect in the raw files something crooked Hillary had deleted.

The companion (in form though not intent) of the mountweazel is the “ghost word”.  A ghost word is a word that enters a dictionary, reference book or some other reputable source, despite being “wrong”.  The causative events have been varied, including misunderstood abbreviations, typographical errors, printer's mistakes, errors in transcription or translation, scribal copying errors, damaged manuscripts, corruptions in transmission and mishearings of audio recordings.  While advances in technology have made it possible more efficiently to identify ghost words, the increasing use of OCR (optical character recognition) on texts of sometimes dubious legibility may yet create a few and given the propensity of AI (artificial intelligence) bots to “make-up stuff”, there’s likely to be a new generation yet to be discovered.  In linguistics, the professionals distinguish between “ghost words” and “phantom words” and the distinction matters in their rarefied world but to most of us the latter probably would be thought mere “spelling errors”.

Few have made a great as contribution to the study of the English language as Walter William Skeet, the ghost word but one of his minor legacies.

All that matters for purposes of definition is that the word has no actual history of use in the language.  One celebrated example was “dord” which appeared in the 1934 edition of Webster's New International Dictionary, defined as “density”.  What had happened was the chemistry section’s editor had written a note saying: “D or d, cont/ density” (meaning “uppercase D or lowercase d is the abbreviation for density”) but a typesetter misread the spaces, blending the characters to create a “new word”.  Until 1939 “dord” sat on its page in Webster’s, apparently without causing trouble but it was noticed during an internal review and a “plate change/imperative/urgent” instruction was sent to the printer; at that point the linguistic exorcism was effected but, because lead-times and product supply-lines were then longer, not until 1947 were Webster’s confident they successfully had “de-dorded” things.  It could of course have been different.  Had chemists ((The origin, start; point (in time) at which something comes into being). or anyone else) decided dord was a “perfectly cromulent word” and use had achieved critical mass, it would have become a “real word”.  Quite when the term “ghost word” first was used in this sense is uncertain but lexicographers agree it was popularized by English mathematician, philologist & Anglican deacon Walter William Skeat (1835–1912), notable for his seminal work in editing Medieval texts.

The neologism “cromulent” appeared in Lisa the Iconoclast (episode 16, season 7 of the US animated TV series The Simpsons (1989-) which aired on Fox on 18 February, 1996.  Cromulent (acceptable; valid; correct) was deliberately not “a real word”, the gag being it was included in the script to be used by one character to assure another that “embiggen” (to make larger) was “a real word”.  So it was a funny line but the irony was embiggen had a (limited) history of use dating from 1884.  In the years since, it has been included in mainstream dictionaries and has found a niche in the mysterious world of string theory, a collection of explanations of the structure of the universe; being under the rubric of quantum gravity, string theory is understood only by a handful of specialists, not all of whom agree with each other.  Probably few would deny embiggen deserves to be in the jargon of string theory but whether the discipline is cromulent science continues to divide opinion.

Warren Harding (1865–1923; POTUS 1921-1923), New Year's Day, 1920.  Harding presided over a scandal-plagued administration and his early death might have been one of those “good career moves”.  Theodore Roosevelt’s (TR, 1858–1919; POTUS 1901-1909) daughter Alice Longworth (1884–1980) “knew everybody” in twentieth century US politics and in summing up Harding concluded: “Harding wasn’t a bad man, he was just a slob.”

There have over the years been many “ghost words” (the authoritative Wiktionary listing 33 instances in English of examples meeting their strict criterion).  It’s not enough that a word is “wrong”; whether fictitious, malicious, erroneous or whatever, to become a “ghost word” it must in some work of reference be presented as “genuine” and in that form endure long enough to take on some sort of life.  Humorists and experimentalists have of course coined or repurposed words which have entered mainstream use but these are not ghost words because their lineage was documented.  There are also “pseudo ghost words” (those treated as such but with a verified history authenticating the alleged error), a celebrated example being Warren Harding’s use during his successful 1920 presidential campaign of “normalcy” instead of “normality”, the section of his speech containing the offending word was almost aggressively alliterative:

“America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.”

Unrelated: The mountain weasel (Mustela altaica), an inhabitant of high-altitude regions in parts of Asia including Kazakhstan, Tibet, India, Mongolia, north-eastern China and southern Siberia.

In saying "normalcy", he may have misspoken or perhaps Harding liked the word; questioned afterwards he said he found it in a dictionary which probably was true although whether his discovery came before or after the speech wasn't explored.  Although Harding’s choice was much-derided at the time, normalcy had certainly existed since at least 1857, originally as a technical term from geometry meaning the “mathematical condition of being at right angles, state or fact of being normal in geometry” but subsequently it had on several occasions appeared in print as a synonym of normality.  Still, it was hardly in general use though Harding gave it a boost and it’s not since gone extinct, now with little complaint except from the most linguistically fastidious who insist the use in geometry remains the only meaning and all subsequent applications are mistakes.  In these circumstances, a misspeak “does not a ghost word always make”.  At the time, many assumed Mr Harding had “misspoken”.  For someone to “misspeak” was then understood to mean “saying something incorrectly, unclearly or inaccurately (by mistake).  Misspeak thus distinguished unintentional errors, mispronunciations or “slips of the tongue” from deliberate lies.  “Misspeak” had enjoyed a darkly amusing late career change.  Historically, it meant (1) to fail to pronounce, utter, or speak correctly or (2) to speak insultingly, disrespectfully or inappropriately ( a use long obsolete) but in recent decades it has evolved as a “weasel word” (a word used to hedge a statement, making it vague; equivocal; ambiguous; misleading) used by politicians and others tacitly to admit having lied without having to say: “I lied”.  So it’s beyond a euphemism (which has a hint of polite respectability) and something most associated with crooked Hillary Clinton, notorious for her “strained” relationship with truthfulness although to be fair to crooked Hillary (difficult, but it can be done), her husband (Bill Clinton (b 1946; POTUS 1993-2001)) did not in such matters set a stellar example.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

A malapropism is a literary device and not a ghost word.  Mrs Malaprop was a character in Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s (1751-1816) play The Rivals (1775); she had the habit of substituting inappropriate but like-sounding words that would take on a ludicrous meaning in the sentence in which they appeared (her intended compliment “nice arrangement of epithets” came from her lips as “nice derangement of epitaphs”).  That was very different from a “mere typo”, a breed which tends either to be annoying or amusing but which in certain documents could be consequential (consider “prescribe” vs “proscribe”) but typos can also coin words.  “Hodling” was intended to be in the text string “I am holding”, typed by a cryptocurrency investor who wished to assure others in the chatgroup he was “holding” his Bitcoin position and not selling despite the sudden drop in the price.  Unfortunately, he’d reputedly enjoyed half a bottle of whisky (or whiskey) so finger control on the keyboard was diminished, thus the word-making “I am hodling.”  That proved a linguistic gift because “hodl” (hold) entered the jargon of the cryptocoin jockeys and hodlers (those who do not react to every price downturn by selling) are thought a fearless elite. 

Applied spoonerism: First assembled in 1977, the Cunning Stunts was a London-based, feminist performance collective.  Suffering the internal conflicts perhaps endemic to collectives, the Cunning Stunts dissolved in 1982, having seemingly worked their concept dry.  In the UK, much alternative theatre didn’t survive the 1980s, the administration of Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013; UK prime-minister 1979-1990) dismantling many of the often left-wing local authorities which had provided a substantial proportion of the funding.

Nor is a spoonerism likely to become a ghost phrase.  A spoonerism is a play on words in a phrase in which the initial (typically a consonant) sounds of two or more of the words are transposed.  It was named after Oxford don the Reverend W. A. Spooner (1844–1930), who was alleged to have made many such slip-ups (“Our dear old queen” becoming “Our queer old dean”) although among scholars it’s suspected that while doubtless he made a few, there was likely a healthy industry among his students (and perhaps even his fellow dons) is concocting a more to be attributed.  Another variant was the mondegreen.  Mondegreen was coined by US editor & journalist Sylvia Wright (1917-1981) who, in a piece published in 1954 in Harper's Magazine, recalled a childhood memory of mishearing her mother read a line in the Scottish ballad The Bonnie Earl o' Moray (which appeared in Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765) by the English clergyman bishop and antiquarian Thomas Percy (1729-1811)): “They have slain the Earl o' Moray, / And laid him on the green”, the second line misheard as, “And Lady Mondegreen”.  Now an acknowledged descriptor, “mondegreen” didn’t appear in mainstream dictionaries until the twenty-first century and that was a product of lists of “obscure or unusual” words beginning to proliferate on the internet as bandwidth increased and cost fell.  Not all novelties pleased the editors but mondegreen was nerdy enough to make the lexicographical cut.  Structurally, there’s no reason why a misspeak, malaproprism, spoonerism or mondegreen can’t become a ghost word; it’s all in the history.

Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo in his battered 1959 Peugeot 403 Cabriolet.

Both embiggen and cromulent are not ghost words because they were positioned as “joke words” rather than being errors and nor are they mountweazels because they were inserted into the script as something other than copyright traps.  Essentially, a mountweazel deliberately is fake while a ghost word is in some sense “wrong”, the distinction summed up as: (1) a ghost word is an error mistaken for truth while (2) a mountweazel is a fabrication presented as truth for strategic reasons.  There are however limitations to the mountweazel’s utility as a copyright trap, the classic example the legal squabble which came to be dubbed “the Columbo Trap”.  Columbo was a TV detective drama which at various times between 1968-2003 was shown on the NBC & ABC networks; it started Peter Falk (1927–2011) as Lieutenant Columbo, remembered for (1) always solving the murder(s), (2) his catch phrase “just one more thing” and (3) driving a dilapidated 1959 Peugeot 403 Cabriolet (one of 504 built than year out of the 2,030 made during a five-year run (1956-1961)).

The Trivia Encyclopedia (1974): Mostly accurate.

The first edition of the best-selling book The Trivia Encyclopedia appeared in 1974; written by Fred L. Worth, it was for years a fixture on bookshop “Christmas gift” lists.  In 1984, claiming damages of US$300 million, Mr Worth filed suit against the distributors of the board game Trivial Pursuit, claiming they had stolen their game’s questions from his books.  There were many instances of copying he cited but his key piece of evidence was a mountweazel in his book: the “trivial fact” the first name of the TV detective Lieutenant Colombo was “Philip”.  This was a product of Mr Worth’s imagination but in the board game, it was included as an answer to that question.  His legal point was that while the board game’s creators could have obtained his other examples from many other sources (as indeed he had), the notion of “Philip Columbo” appeared first in his book and that it was “not a fact” was irrelevant because the basis of his suit was the unauthorized and unattributed copying.

On just about any topic, there's probably a trivia list somewhere on-line.

The distributers of Trivial Pursuit made no attempt to deny sourcing much material from Mr Worth's book, arguing “facts” are not able to receive the protection of copyright.  To emphasize the point, the company provided a long list of published texts from which information had been copied and argued it would be absurd to suggest they could be sued for providing the answer “Queen Victoria reigned between 1837-1901” because that fact appears in thousands of books.  They acknowledged an action might be possible (depending on many things) had they merely published a “book of trivial facts” (a la Mr Worth’s) but a multi-player board game in which questions had to be answered was “a substantially different product” within the meaning of copyright law.  The judge agreed, a finding upheld on appeal and the USSC declined to re-hear the case, thus reinforcing general principle “a fact cannot be copyrighted”.  Mr Worth’s response was that by definition “Philip Columbo” was thus a piece of fiction deserving copyright; the courts did not concur.  Amusingly however, others also copied Mr Worth’s mountweazel and references to “Lieutenant Philip Columbo” over the years appeared in print and on-line, Peugeot in the 1980s even running advertising campaign in which “Lt. Philip Columbo” was mentioned as the “most famous driver” of a Peugeot convertible.  That was a bit of a shift from the company’s original views on the 403 Cabriolet’s appearance in the TV series, the executives not best pleased at its dilapidated state.  Internet sleuths later published close-up screen shots of his police badge which revealed his name was “Frank Columbo”.