Is esquivalience now a bona fide word?
Today, I came across WP's entry for the word esquivalience:
"Esquivalience" is a fictitious entry in the New Oxford American Dictionary (NOAD), which was designed and included to protect copyright of the publication.
The word was invented by Christine Lindberg, one of the editors of the NOAD and discovered by Henry Alford.
It was leaked that the dictionary had put in a fake word in the letter "e" and Alford set out to find the word. It was discovered after review of a short list by several experts. When the editor, Erin McKean, was contacted she admitted that it was indeed a fake word and had been in since the first edition, in order to protect the copyright of the CD-ROM edition.
The word is defined as "the willful avoidance of one's official responsibilities."
The first edition of the NOAD was published back in 2001 and two more have since seen print. Eleven years later, the word continues to be defined as a legitimate entry on ODO, Google, and going by the WP article, in the print editions. Is it now considered an authentic word? Or are OUP esquivaliently demonstrating the use of their esquivalience?
This is one place where I think NGrams can throw a little light on the subject.
Even when you narrow the search to between 2000 and 2008, you're still looking at a flatlining entry.
In cases where a word is defined by a dictionary but nobody is really using it, I think it's safe to say it's not a real word. If people pick it up and start using it, then sure, it will qualify. For now, though, I would call it artificial — a Potemkin village of a word.
Edit
It was pointed out to me that I misspelled the made-up word. I'm not sure how a fake word can be misspelled, but here is an NGram for the "correct" spelling. Note the huge jump in usage.
A Google search yields a few genuine hits for that word. Here's one that contains some comments by the NOAD editor who created the word. She says "that she finds herself using it regularly". A few dictionaries contain the word, or used to (Dictionary.com) but deleted it.
The question is whether anyone but the NOAD editor and her buddies use the word. If English speakers see it in NOAD and actually start using it because they believe it's a real word, then it becomes one because it's used. If no one actually uses it, then it's not a real word. But the real test, it seems to me, is when it's included in the Scrabble dictionary: then and only then is it a real word. But maybe it's just a matter of faith: If I believe it's true, then it's true for me and that's all that's important. Solipsism is everywhere.
Alford's New Yorker article about it is interesting. The Chicago Tribune article cited in Wikipedia is a dead link.