apocryphal = archetypal? unbelievable?

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:35 PM -0500 2/7/10, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>At least that's what it looks like:
>
>1971 Roger A. Beaumont  "Images of War" in _Military Affairs_ (Feb.) 6:  [A]
>whole series of films came out of Hollywood [in 1941]...generally disposed
>to American's [sic] girding its psychological loins for the coming shock of
>battle...[including] "Sergeant York," the almost apocryphal story of a
>pacifist turned war hero.
>At the time of writing, Prof. Beaumont was "Associate Director of the Center
>for Advanced Study in Organization Science and Assistant Professor of
>Organization Science at the University of Wisconsin, University Extension,
>Milwaukee."
>
>Much as I'd like to believe it means "apocryphal," I just can't do it.
>
>
I'll take the devil's advocate position.  The sense is it's *almost*
too good to be true, truth being stranger than fiction, etc. etc.,
and since "too good to be true" = apocryphal, there you go.  QED and
all that.

LH

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