# Weird word - if anyone knows it, Dopers will

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-word-if-anyone-knows-it-dopers-will/209441>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 25, 2003, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-word-if-anyone-knows-it-dopers-will/209441 "2003-10-25T02:33:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\
**Post date:** [November 5, 2003, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-word-if-anyone-knows-it-dopers-will/209441/21 "2003-11-05T05:15:06Z")

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Sorry to appear to doubt you. I almost certainly knew you’d come through. It was more for my future knowledge than dissing you.

Thanks for the cite. I was just too backed up to try to find it on my own.

I went to the archives of the American Dialect Society Mailing List, and it’s discussed there. As a side note, Barbara over at snopes says it didn’t get corrected until about 1959, if I interpolated her article correctly.

Joanne Despres, the current editor of the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary(the only one you should own, in addition to the OED) said she checked the in-house volumes, and the mistake was actually caught in 1940—but the correction didn’t make it into print until a 1947 edition. She added this, (used without her permission, but I though you’d find it interesting)…

> [@](#):
>
> Well, the wonder is that more mistakes like that don’t get through. Preparing a new dictionary for publication is, in some ways, like working at a rest stop McDonald’s in southern Connecticut during Christmas season.

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**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\
**Post date:** [November 5, 2003, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-word-if-anyone-knows-it-dopers-will/209441/22 "2003-11-05T05:19:27Z")

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Game, site, and MATCH: **Jomo Mojo**!

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