Truthiness begins to be used for real

[aallan at AOL.COM]

 From the January 16 Chicago Tribune, an unsigned editorial. - Allan Metcalf

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The truthiness hurts
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January 16, 2006

The American Dialect Society has crowned "truthiness" its word of the year for
2005, an achievement that makes us think the word of the moment must be
"serendipity."

Just as a media uproar erupts over fabrications in James Frey's best-selling
memoir about his drug habit, along comes a new word that fits the situation
perfectly.

Truthiness is the invention of Stephen Colbert, host of the nightly Colbert
Report (that's Col-bear Re-pore, for the unrefined) on Comedy Central. The show
is a dead-on parody of smug and self-absorbed cable news commentators whose
opinions aren't always constrained by facts.

Colbert used the word "truthiness" to describe an impression of truth not
necessarily constrained by those pesky little facts, which can just get in the
way.

The more formal definition, provided by the American Dialect Society: "the
quality of stating concepts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than the
facts."

That pretty much sums up the controversy over Frey's "A Million Little Pieces."
The pesky little facts of his own life have intruded on his truthiness.

Badgered by the investigative Web site The Smoking Gun, Frey acknowledged last
week that his tale of violence, addiction and recovery is not all fact.

Frey said he made up "a handful" of details. His critics say there's no evidence
that he spent three months in jail, registered 0.36 on a blood alcohol test, or
was charged with felony DUI after striking a police officer with his car, to
name just a few of the very, very many disputed points. All of that is
irrelevant, Frey protests, because it is the essence of the story that matters.

In other words, the truthiness.

It's what Frey's publishers, Anchor Books and Doubleday, were talking about when
they said they stand behind the book because the embellishments are outweighed
by "the power of the overall reading experience."

And it's what Oprah Winfrey, who launched the memoir to the top by selecting it
for her book club last fall, meant when she said the distortions don't trouble
her because the message "still resonates with me and many others."

So where's the harm?

The victims here are those who sought inspiration or hope in Frey's story of
downfall and redemption. The book was recommended by several groups that help
addicts recover. Many readers identified with Frey's struggle and gained
encouragement from his story. But the author's experience is not particularly
instructive once you realize he gets to script the ending. Those readers feel
betrayed, and rightly so.

There's also the question of getting what you pay for. Frey says he couldn't
find any takers when he shopped a version of his manuscript as fiction. Only
when it was represented as reality did the book find a publisher who thought it
would sell.

The buzz certainly hasn't hurt sales of Frey's second book, "My Friend Leonard,"
in which, according to the summary on The New York Times best-seller list, the
author "remembers a helpful mobster friend." Uh-huh.

Let the buyer beware. Like Frey's first book, this one has a ring of truthiness
about it. Not to be confused with the truth.


Copyright (c) 2006, Chicago Tribune

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