"fact" = notion or idea that has not been established as a fact or is not a fact

[Jonathan Lighter]

I may have reported this very common SOTA perversion of sense and logic before, but here's an example that's hard to weasel out of:

  1998 Carolyn Nordstrom "Deadly Myths of Aggression," in _Aggressive Behavior_  XXIV 152:  The people who inaugurate wars do not fight them, giving lie to the social fact that "wars explode."

  Note too the form "give lie to."

   Prof. Nordstrom holds a doctorate in anthropology from Berkeley.


  JL


---------------------------------
How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger’s low  PC-to-Phone call rates.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org