This file is an excerpt
from the September 1997 version of Mark Israel's AUE FAQ.
The file was re-generated Friday 23 January 2004 01:36 GMT.
To see the full AUE FAQ at Mark Israel's Web site, click here.
Do publishers put false info in dictionaries to catch plagiarists?
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From: david@frnk303.franklin.com (David Justice)
> For what it's worth, I worked a few years at Merriam-Webster (late
> 1980s) and can attest that we never deliberately inserted false
> stuff for purposes of catching plagiarists. For one thing, every
> dictionary I've ever examined has been all too full of
> *un*intentional errors, and they could serve the same purpose.
On the other hand, books such as Who's Who do have fictitious
entries.