Zzxjoanw is a famous fictitious entry in an encyclopedia which fooled logologists for many years. It referred to a purported Maoriword meaning "drum", "fife", or "conclusion".
Origin
In 1903, author Rupert HughespublishedThe Musical Guide, an encyclopedia of classical music. Among the many sections of the "Guide" was a "pronouncing and defining dictionary of terms, instruments, etc". The "dictionary," 252 pages in all, explained the meaning and gave the pronunciation of German, Italian, and other non-English words found in the terminology of classical music. At the end of the dictionary, immediately following the entry for "zymbel", Hughes added the following definition:
The entry was retained when the book was republished under different titles in 1912 and 1939.
Reception
According to Dmitri Borgmann's 1965 book , printed before it was revealed as a hoax: In 1974, Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words, while accepting the word's meaning as a "Maori drum", rejected Hughes' pronunciation of "shaw", proposing a somewhat different realization: "ziks-jo'an". Ross Eckler describes the hoax in his 1996 book Making the Alphabet Dance: No other Māori word appears in the dictionary, and the suggested pronunciation of "shaw" does not conform to the format of the dictionary's own pronunciation guide. The book You Say Tomato: An Amusing and Irreverent Guide to the Most Often Mispronounced Words in the English Language, published in 2005, appears to take the word seriously. Citing "eminent alternative lexicographer Mr. Peter Bowler" it gives the meaning as a Māori drum; however it declines to offer a pronunciation, saying that "We'll leave the pronunciation to the Maoris, although Welshmen and Poles are said to be able to do wonders with it".
The word, although originally a hoax, has taken on a life of its own. In the 1990 science-fiction novel Earth by David Brin, the following passage is found: In the 1990 graphic novelBatman 3-D, the story "Ego Trip" by John Byrne uses the word as a plot device, where it appears on a delivery receipt. The police believe it to be a garbled message, but Batman knows it to be an actual order of a Māori drum. Joe Dunthorne's 2008 novel Submarine includes the following reference:
