Truthiness is the 2005 Word of the Year

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 1/6/06, Grant Barrett <gbarrett at worldnewyork.org> wrote:
>
> In its 16th annual words of the year vote, the American Dialect
> Society voted "truthiness" as the word of the year. First heard on
> the Colbert Report, a satirical mock news show on the Comedy Channel,
> "truthiness" refers to the quality of stating concepts or facts one
> wishes or believes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to
> be true. As Stephen Colbert put it, "I don't trust books. They're all
> fact, no heart."

Here's an off-the-cuff Language Log post on the voting and media coverage:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002749.html


--Ben Zimmer