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A ghost word is a word that has been published in a dictionary, or has been adopted as genuine, as the result of misinterpretation or a typographical error.

An example is the supposed Homeric Greek word στητη = "woman", which arose thus: In Iliad Book 1 line 6 is the phrase διαστητην ερισαντε = "two [= Achilles and Agamemnon ] stood apart making strife", where later someone not familiar with dual number verb inflections read it as δια στητην ερισαντε = "two making strife because of a στητη", and he guessed that στητη meant the woman Briseis who was the subject of the strife.

Another is the placename Sarum, which arose by misunderstanding the medieval-type writing abbreviation Sar~ which was intended to mean some early form such as "Sarisberie" (= Salisbury).

The most famous example in English (and many other languages) is "scapegoat" which is a mistranslation of the word Azazel (In Hebrew: עזאזל) originated by William Tyndale in his 1530 Bible, and appropriated in the King James Version of the Bible (Leviticus chapter 16) in 1611. Confounded by the word, Tyndale had interpreted Azazel as ez ozel - literally, "the goat that departs"; hence "(e)scape goat." According to the Talmud, Yoma 67b, Azazel is a contraction of az (harsh) and eil (strong) and refers to the most rugged of mountains. This identification is supported by Rashi, the great Medieval grammarian, who interpreted Azazel to be the name of a specific mountain or cliff over which the goat was driven^[1]. According to R.H. Charles, it was called so for its reputation as the holding place of the fallen angel of the same name^[2]. Modern scholars generally reject Tyndale's interpretation and favor one related to a fallen angel/evil demon interpretation. Today in modern Hebrew Azazel is used derogatorily, as in lekh la-Azazel ("go to Azazel"), as in "go to hell".

A recent use of the term "ghost word" refers to a non-existing word implied logically from a real word. An example is "beforemath" which is the ghost word derived from "aftermath".

[edit] See also

• Dord
• Nihilartikel

[edit] References

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