[found via Daring Fireball via kottke.org]

The New Yorker has a short piece on fake entries in encyclopedias and dictionaries that serve as traps for would-be plagiarists. The initial example is the entry for “Lillian Virginia Mountweazel” in the New Columbia Encyclopedia, a non-existent “fountain designer turned photographer who was celebrated for a collection of photographs of rural American mailboxes titled “Flags Up!’”.

Then the investigation turns to the New Oxford American Dictionary, which turns out to have the following fake entry:

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

John Gruber at Daring Fireball adds: “The New Oxford American Dictionary, of course, is the dictionary behind Mac OS X 10.4’s new Dictionary application, and, indeed, there’s an entry for esquivalience, complete with usage examples and fake etymology. (Go ahead and look it up with a Command-Control-D.)” So, I did. Here’s the entry in all its beauty: