Birth of a nova--not?

[James Smith]

I was skeptical when I first saw TRUTHINESS was the
WOTY, but I am coming to like it.

I understand VERISIMILITUDE as fiction created with
the appearance of truth.  TRUTHINESS strikes me as
truth diluted with fiction, yet maintaining the
overall appearance of truth.



--- Brenda Lester <alphatwin2002 at YAHOO.COM> wrote:

> I agree. Waited for back-up.
>
>
> RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:  In a message dated
> 1/18/06 8:32:18 PM, AAllan at AOL.COM writes:
>
>
> > New revelations about James Frey's partly made-up
> best-selling memoir about
> > his addiction to alcohol and crack and arrests
> make "truthiness" sound
> > timely
> > and downright prophetic. Frey admitted last week
> that he embellished some
> > details of his life in "A Million Little Pieces,"
> such as serving time in
> > prison.
> >
>
> Nah, TRUTHINESS is not a lexicological nova, it is a
> cute, stunt-wordy flash
> in the lexicographical pan and will go the way of
> BUSHLIPS, and about as
> quickly.
>
> There is an old word for what Frey did:
> VERISIMILITUDE. Come to think of it,
> that is pretty much what TRUTHINESS means (though
> admittedly not totally).
>
> I am skeptical about predicitions that TRUTHINESS
> has much of a future. Not
> only is it doing the same work as VERISIMILITUDE,
> but it is not all that easy
> to recognize it morphosemantically as distinct from
> TRUTHFULNESS or
> TRUENESS--this is why so many people intitially
> reacted to it as a silly word: they saw
> it as a mere (pretentious) variant of one of those
> established words. If
> HAPPINESS means 'the state of being happy' and
> SILLINESS means 'the condition of
> being silly' and RANDINESS means 'the state of being
> RANDY' then why should
> TRUTHINESS mean 'the condition of SEEMING true'? I
> realize that TRUTHINESS is
> derived from TRUTHY 'truth-like', but TRUTHY is
> itself not a "real" word,   and the
> "-Y" suffix is so ambiguous, that the connection
> between TRUTHINESS and
> TRUTHY is opaque.
>
>
>
> > On the issue of Frey, it is interesting to see
> that Allan has adopted the
> > language of the media--"admitted" and
> "embellished"--in referring to Frey's
> > really splendid book on addiction and
> rehabilitation. These words both imply
> > that Frey did something wrong in adding
> fictionalized details to his "memoir,"
> > a genre that goes back to the 16th century at
> least and that is not the same
> > thing as an autobiography, in which one expects
> literal truth. If the author
> > of the 18th Century "memoir," FANNY HILL really
> did all the things that Fanny
> > says she did, then the 18th Century was a lot more
> queer than anyone ever
> > thought.
> >
>
>
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James D. SMITH                 |If history teaches anything
South SLC, UT                  |it is that we will be sued
jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com     |whether we act quickly and decisively
                               |or slowly and cautiously.

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