Have you ever heard the term "ghost word?" This is a non-word that entered the dictionary (usually) by mistake. Some were misreadings of hand-written or foreign words, some were typos. A few were even added on purpose (in a practice similar to cartographers drawing fake locations on a map as a sort of watermark) to spot plagiarism.
Some ghost words, like dord and foupe, while haunting a few editions of dictionaries, never really escaped into the English language. But others, like gravy and syllabus, are in our language to stay. All of these lexicographical spooks are explored in this episode of RobWords.
