| Fictitious Entry |
Article Index for Fictitious |
Shopping Fictitious |
Website Links For Entry |
Information AboutFictitious Entry |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT FICTITIOUS ENTRY | |
| hoaxes | |
| fictitious entries | |
| false documents | |
|
When looking up an entry in a reference work, one normally starts from an external reference to the subject. For an invented entry, no such reference exists. Therefore, one would typically stumble upon a fictitious entry only by chance. Some, however, are related closely enough to a factual subject that they are more likely to be found. For example, a fictitious entry in an otherwise non-fictional reference work might simply define or explain a term from a work of Fiction , or give a Biography of a character from a Novel , or describe a fictional institution, without explaining that it is fictitious. There does not appear to be any commonly used Original version of the German Wikipedia article ''Nihilartikel'', 29 August 2004. The article has since been renamed as ''Fingierter Lexikonartikel''. in an article which has been categorized as a fictitious entry by some,http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-nih1.htm however the term appears in an archived email written months before the German Wikipedia article was created. Earliest known use of "Nihilartikel" as a technical term which means "fictitious entry". CHARACTER It is not always simple to recognize these. It is especially difficult when the same fictitious entry is reprinted and adapted by multiple reference works. In such cases, the multiple sources serve to bolster the entry's authenticity, so that many come to believe that they are reading a factual article. Uncovering fictitious entries is a part of the game for Editors and Publisher s. In some cases, the game can extend beyond a single work, as an academic Parody or a Satire is reproduced, quoted, or otherwise extended into multiple Publication s such as encyclopedias or science Periodical s. One can only speculate about fictitious entries that go undiscovered, especially once a work becomes very old. Katharina Hein writes, "Insiders assume that every encyclopedia contains wrong keywords." There is great stylistic variance in fictitious entries: some are simple parodies that are easily seen through, but others are carefully constructed have a structure that is particularly identifiable, and therefore false biography articles are the most common type of fictitious entries. MOTIVATIONS FOR CREATION Besides the obvious possibility of simple playful mischief, fictitious entries may be composed for other purposes. Chief among these is to catch Copyright infringers. By including a trivial piece of false information in a larger work, it is far easier to demonstrate that someone has Plagiarized that work: they will presumably copy the fictitious entry along with other articles. This is very similar to the inclusion of one or more . However, these traps may still be useful. Even if the trap cannot be used in a court, it still helps a business owner to detect copying. An outright Forgery intended to mislead the reader on a matter of substance would not generally be classed as a mere fictitious entry. EXAMPLES Official sources Most listings of the members of the German Parliament (including its own website) feature the fictitious politician Jakob Maria Mierscheid , allegedly a member of the parliament since 1979. Among other activities he is reported to have contributed to a major stone-louse symposium in Frankfurt (see below). Reference works The sport, '' Apopudobalia '', which resembles modern Football (soccer) . '' Appleton's Cyclopedia Of American Biography '' (1887- 89 ) contains about 200 fictitious entries. '' Zzxjoanw '' was the last entry in Rupert Hughes’ ''Music Lovers’ Encyclopedia'' of 1903, and subsequent editions down to the 1950s, which was claimed to be a Maori word for a drum. It was later proved to be a hoax (not least because there is no Z, X or J in the Maori Language ). The music-lexicographical works of Nicolas Slonimsky , most notably ''Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Music & Musicians'' inevitably contain fictitious entries; as Slonimsky was both extraordinarily precise and a specialist in the obscure, the extent of his inventions is unknown. The 1975 '' New Columbia Encyclopedia '' contains a fictitious entry on Lillian Virginia Mountweazel (1942-73), purportedly an American photographer. The first printing of the 1980 '' New Grove Dictionary Of Music And Musicians '' contains two fictitious entries. The first is on Guglielmo Baldini , a non-existent Italian composer, and the second was on the subject of one Dag Henrik Esrum-Hellerup , who purportedly composed a small amount of music for Flute . Esrum-Hellerup's surname derives from a Danish village and a suburb in Copenhagen . The two entries were removed from later editions, as well as from later printings of the 1980 edition. A third spurious entry, "Verdi, Lasagne ", was apparently circulated among the editorial staff and nearly reached the printer, but was pulled at the last minute. '''', defined as "the willful avoidance of one’s official responsibilities," which had originally been added in the first, 2001, edition. It was intended as a copyright trap, as the text of the book was distributed electronically and thus very easy to copy. The . The Pschyrembel entry was removed in 1996, but after reader protests readded the next year, with an extended section on the stone louse's involvement in the fall of the Berlin Wall . The German-language ". A fictitious . They also added false entries involving Æblerød to other works. Roland says they wanted to investigate what one could get away with, and for how long. He has commended Wikipedia for getting it corrected. APRIL FOOL'S '' the size of a bowling ball) and of the " Hotheaded Naked Ice Borer " (an Antarctic predator resembling a Naked Mole Rat that burrows through ice). San Serriffe was originally the topic of an April Fool 's article in '' The Guardian ''. The American Science And Surplus catalog of educational and scientific supplies lists a "Find the fake catalog item" contest in the April edition of their catalog. '' Scientific American '' usually has a hoax article each April, such as the disproof of the Four Color Theorem , and discovery of a computer made of ropes and pulleys by the ancient "Apraphulians". In an April 2005 editorial entitled "Okay, We Give Up", the magazine apologized for favoring evolution over creationism. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000E555C-4387-1237-81CB83414B7FFE9F&ref=sciam&chanID=sa004 The normally stately '' Economist '' occasionally runs April Fool's articles. Examples include articles on Genetically Engineered pet dragons, the adoption of a 10-hour day and the harmonization of EU birth rates.http://www.economist.com/diversions/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=2551688 CULINARY Swedish Lemon Angels , an impossible recipe listed in the book '' How To Play With Your Food '' by Penn And Teller , wherein lemon juice is combined with Sodium Bicarbonate effecting an Effervescent and messy Chemical Reaction . Whilst not intended as a Copyright Trap , the recipe has worked its way into many other recipe books and online databases, usually with no regard for the culinary worth of the end product. TRIVIA BOOKS, ETC. The book '''', also long thought to be a hoax, but apparently actually was made and shown to audiences.) '' The Trivia Encyclopedia '' placed deliberately false answers for a limited number of quiz questions, for copy-trap purposes; this was tested when the makers of Trivial Pursuit based some of their questions on the work. Columbo’s First Name and The Supreme Court - The “Philip Columbo” Story on columbo-site.freeuk.com. Accessed 31 August 2006. The Urban Legends Reference Pages (snopes.com) include a section entitled ''The Repository of Lost Legends'', containing false discussions of made-up legends (for example, that the bear in the design of the Flag Of California is the result of a handwritten note being misread and that it was meant to be a pear). The aim of the stories in the section is to caution readers against using Appeals To Authority , and encourage the checking of references for claims that seem unreasonable; the initials of "The Repository of Lost Legends" spells out '' TROLL ''. OTHER Australia n Archaeologist Tim Flannery 's book '' Astonishing Animals '', written in collaboration with Painter Peter Schouten , describes some of the more outlandish animals alive on Earth . They caution that one of the animals is a product of their imagination and it is up to the reader to distinguish which one it is. Rhinogradentia are an entirely fictitious Mammal ian Order , extensively documented in a series of articles and books by the equally fictitious German naturalist Harald Stümpke . Both the animals and the scientist were allegedly creations of Gerolf Steiner , a Zoology professor at the University Of Heidelberg . Author Isaac Asimov wrote '' The Endochronic Properties Of Resublimated Thiotimoline '' in 1948. At first glance it appears to be a genuine, highly complex, scientific essay; however on closer analysis one finds it is Science Fiction presented as a clever parody of opaque scientific writing. In 1978, the fictional Ohio towns of Goblu And Beatosu were inserted into that year's official State of Michigan map as a nod to the University Of Michigan 's traditional rivals from Ohio State University . The doctored maps were withdrawn and now fetch up to $150 in mint condition. The town of Agloe, New York was invented by map makers but eventually became a real place. Each issue of the product catalogue for Swedish consumer electronics/hobby articles retailer Teknikmagasinet contains a fictitious product. Finding that product is a contest, "Blufftävlingen", where the best suggestion for another fictitious product from someone who spotted the product gets included in the next issue. {Link without Title} "Oodnawoopwoop" (or simply "Woop-Woop") is a fictious placename used in Australia to denote a generic remote place. A similar placename used in New Zealand is the fictitious Maori Language placename " Waikikamukau ".1 ''Muse'' (a magazine for children 10-14) includes as a regular feature a two-page spread containing science and technology news. One of the news stories is false and the reader is encourgaged to guess which one. IN FICTION A Fred Saberhagen '' Berserker '' Science Fiction short story, "The Annihilation of Angkor Apeiron," has a Berserker directed to a star system by an encyclopedia salesman. The salesman is put on trial for treason, but reveals that the encyclopedia article for the star system, with population figures, resources, etc., was a fictitious entry included in the encyclopedia to detect plagiarism; thus the Berserker actually ended up in an empty star system where it ran out of fuel and ceased to be a threat to humanity. RELATED TYPES OF TEXT In contrast to fictitious entries, which are false information in a real encyclopedia, there are also literary encyclopedia fictions. For instance, in Jorge Luis Borges 's story " Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius ", the narrator claims to have come across an encyclopedia entry for "Uqbar" in a copy of ''The Anglo American Cyclopaedia'' (New York, 1917), a pirated version of the '' Encyclopædia Britannica ''; later he encounters a volume of the (entirely imaginary) ''First Encyclopaedia of Tlön''. The Borges story is laced with references to people and works, some of them real, others imaginary, any of them liable to send the reader to an encyclopedia (or, nowadays, the World Wide Web ) for further information. It is quite possible that any number of fictitious entries might be available to convince the unwary reader of the factuality of some of Borges's fictional creations. Borges often worked in other related forms, including literary forgeries (such as passages in the style of Emanuel Swedenborg or from the '' The Book Of One Thousand And One Nights '') and reviews of imaginary books. In a similar vein, Douglas Adams and John Lloyd 's 1983 book '' The Meaning Of Liff '' created imaginary definitions for real British place-names, such as Huttoft and Mavis Enderby . '', only to be quickly excised as " Fancruft ," and prompting Tycho to bear a grudge against the digital encyclopedia. Another similar phenomenon is the satiric work masquerading as non-fiction. Probably the best English-language example of the latter is report. A. P. Herbert wrote a series of imagined law reports called "Misleading Cases" in '' Punch '', later republished in books, and wrote in the preface that he had been gratified to find some of them quoted as though actual court decisions. Similarly, some papers in the '' Journal Of Irreproducible Results '', a journal of parodies of scientific papers, are plausible enough to be mistaken for reality; a ''JIR'' article on atomic bomb construction was even reported to be taken seriously by a terrorist group. Articles in the parody newspaper '' The Onion '' have occasionally been picked up and reported as if they were genuine. Sometimes s (in Classics ''vox nihili'') resulting from typos or misreadings can be treated as real words. An example was '' Dord '', that was defined in 1934's '' Webster's Second New International Dictionary '' as " Density ", but was actually a misreading of "'' D or '''d'''''," an abbreviation for the word. Salts are fictitious entries added to Mailing Lists to detect misuse. When mailing list owners rent lists to third parties, the renter agrees to use the mailing list for only contractually agreed-upon times. The owner typically enforces this by "salting" the mailing list with fake addresses and creates new salts for each time the list is rented. By collecting mail sent to those addresses, the owner can detect misuse. By changing the fake addresses each time the mailing list is rented, the owner can detect which rental contract is violated. In the field of Computer Security , a " Honeytoken " is an individual record, inserted into a database that includes sensitive information, which has no legitimate data and thus is extremely unlikely to ever be accessed legitimately. SEE ALSO
NOTES REFERENCES
FURTHER READING The literature about Fake s, Parody , Travesty and Pastiche barely touches upon the phenomenon of the fictitious entries. This may be because reference books are not in the view of the people writing on these topics. Among the few exceptions are two German Language articles:
|
|
|