The not-so-slow death of truthiness?

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 8/28/06, Steve Kl. <stevekl at panix.com> wrote:
>
> Truthiness is extremely mediagenic and garnered more publicity for the ADS
> and the WoTY than I'd ever seen.

Heck, even that publicity hound Paul Payack has jumped on the
"truthiness" bandwagon...

>"Truthiness," "Wikiality" named TV words of year
>Sun Aug 27, 2006 12:51 PM ET
>http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=televisionNews&storyID=2006-08-27T165048Z_01_N27277446_RTRIDST_0_TELEVISION-EMMYS-WORDS-DC.XML
>
>LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Truthiness" and "Wikiality"
>-- two of the words popularized by political satirist
>Stephen Colbert on his TV show "The Colbert Report"--
>were named on Sunday the top television buzzwords of
>the year.
>
>The word-trend group Global Language Monitor, in its
>annual survey of words from television that had an
>impact on the language, also cited the words
>"Katrina," referring to continuing stories about the
>hurricane's destruction; "Katie," a reference to Katie
>Couric's move into the nightly news anchor role at CBS
>News; and "Dr. McDreamy," a nod to a character on the
>breakout hit "Grey's Anatomy."
>
>The doctor is played by Patrick Dempsey and follows in
>a long line of television "dreamboat" physicians.
>
>The survey was released to coincide with Sunday night
>night's presentation of the Emmy Awards, American
>television's highest honors.
>
>Global Language Monitor defined "truthiness" as used
>by Colbert as meaning "truth unencumbered by the
>facts." "Wikiality," derived from the user-compiled
>Wikipeida information Web site, was defined as
>"reality as determined by majority vote," as when
>astronomers voted Pluto off their list of planets last
>week.
>
>Paul JJ Payack, president of the Global Language
>Monitor, said, "Some of these buzzwords will quickly
>pass while others will be embedded in the language for
>years to come.
>
>Global Language Monitor analyzes trends in word usage
>and word choices and their impact on the various
>aspects of culture.

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