In August 2005, The New Oxford American Dictionary gained media coverage when it was leaked that the second edition contained at least one fictional entry.Reference worksįictitious entries in reference publications often occur in an attempt to catch plagiarism, such as: Among other activities he is reported to have contributed to a major symposium on the equally fictitious stone louse in Frankfurt.
Most listings of the members of the German parliament feature the fictitious politician Jakob Maria Mierscheid, allegedly a member of the parliament since 1979.
Rural, Fred Worth lawsuit or Nester's Map & Guide Corp. Similarly, trap streets may be included in a map, or invented phone numbers in a telephone directory.įictitious entries may be used to demonstrate copying, but to prove legal infringement, the material must also be shown to be eligible for copyright (see Feist v. An admission of this motive appears in the preface to Chambers' 1964 mathematical tables: "those that are known to exist form an uncomfortable trap for any would-be plagiarist". Copyright trapsīy including a trivial piece of false information in a larger work, it is easier to demonstrate subsequent plagiarism if the fictitious entry is copied along with other material. The term nihilartikel, combining the Latin nihil ("nothing") and German Artikel ("article"), is sometimes used. The surname came to be associated with all such fictitious entries. According to the encyclopedia's editor, it is a tradition for encyclopedias to put a fake entry to trap competitors for plagiarism. Allegedly, she is widely known for her photo-essays of unusual subject matter, including New York City buses, the cemeteries of Paris, and rural American mailboxes. This involved the fountain designer turned photographer, Lillian Virginia Mountweazel, who died in an explosion while on assignment for Combustibles magazine.
The neologism Mountweazel was coined by The New Yorker writer Henry Alford in an article that mentioned a fictitious biographical entry placed as a copyright trap in the 1975 New Columbia Encyclopedia. Contentsįictitious entries are included either as a humorous hoax or as a copyright trap to reveal subsequent plagiarism or copyright infringement. There are more specific terms for particular kinds of fictitious entry, such as Mountweazel, trap street, paper town, phantom settlement, and nihilartikel. Deliberately incorrect entry in a reference workįictitious or fake entries are deliberately incorrect entries in reference works such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps, and directories.
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