Yea, you read the title correctly. That is not a random mumble jumble of letters. That is an actual word pronounced "shaw". Or so people thought for more than 70 years.
One day in 1903, an author named Rupert Hughes was feeling very mischievous. He published a book titled The Musical Guide,pretty much like a dictionary, it has 252 pages. It also included non-English words too.
I'm sure most of us have not heard this word before which Hughes claimed had a Maori origin.
According to The Musical Guide, the word has three meanings. A drum, a fife and conclusion.
It wasn't until 70 years later did Philip Cohen challenge this word pointing out its oddities.
Maori had only AEGHIKMNOPRTUW as their alphabets and all words end with a vowel. How Hughes managed to fool logologists for years I do not understand because this word should have been challenge the very minute Hughes submitted the manuscript to the publishing company.
Funny enough in 1990, an author, David Brin used the word in his book titled Earth. Another author John Bryne also used it in his graphic novel Ego Trip same year as Brin.
Submarine a novel published in 2008 which was later adapted into a movie also included this same word.
What do you think of this epic hoax pronounced " shaw"?☺
