[Ads-l] WOTY: "fake news"

[Mailbox]

Perhaps "fake news" should go into the hopper. It may have swung the election.

The durability of the fake news phenomenon was brought home to my husband and me yesterday. I had gotten an insistent message (yet again) from a reader of our blog about the origin of "the whole nine yards," demanding (more or less) that we acknowledge the WWII machine-gun ammunition belt explanation. 

We replied at length by email, recapping the recent 19th-century findings and providing a history of the development of the belt-fed machine gun. All demonstrating of course, that the theory was impossible.

He shot back a reply within a minute: "You are really full of shit."

People who believe etymological folklore cling to it as tenaciously as do those who subscribe to fake news.

Pat O'Conner (http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog <http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog>)
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org