"legend" = fascinating true story

[Charles Doyle]

In the parlance of folklorists, "legend" would be defined something like this:  "(oral) narrative, set in the recent or historical past, told as if believed to be true." That doesn't correspond very closely with any of the OED's definitions.  Notice that events narrated in legends are not necessarily FALSE; nor do the tellers necessarily BELIEVE them to be true.  But legends are told AS IF they are believed, and their rhetoric strives to sound credible, to make the listeners believe (or partly suspend disbelief).

Folklorists continually struggle against the popular use of the word "legend" (or the word "folklore" itself) to mark something as untrue ("That's just an urban legend"; "Isn't that just folklore?").

So, it is indeed curious, in Jonathan's 2001 History Channel instance, that the legnedary seems to be distinguished from the UNTRUE!

--Charlie
___________________________________________________

---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 06:10:43 -0700
>From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>Subject: "legend" = fascinating true story
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
>
>OED has "legend" (a famous actual person) back to 1918. The following is undoubtedly a development of that:
>
>  2001 _Tales of the Gun_ (History Channel TV): William F. Cody....His life was part legend, part fabrication.
>
>  As usual, there are various ways of going into denial about this, but the context entirely supports the idea of "fascinating true story."   Possibly we should add "widely-known as a result of publicity" to the definition.
>
>  Buffalo Bill, of course, was more than just a shadowy, possibly historical figure.
>
>  JL

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