[Ads-l] WOTY: "fake news"

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Wed Dec 7 15:29:21 UTC 2016


Once some time ago (five years? less?) I heard Jon Stewart describe The
Daily Show as a "fake news show."

I suppose it depends on here you place the hyphen. It sounded to me at the
time like "fake-news show."

JL

On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 10:12 AM, David Barnhart <dbarnhart at highlands.com>
wrote:

> Perhaps it is time to acknowledge that there is often not just one WOTY
> even
> if "supported" by sub-WOTY's, such as most or least likely to succeed.
>
> Maybe there should be multiple WOTY's from a variety of human activity
> without crowning one King or Queen of the pile.  Even within the sciences a
> biologist's WOTY may not satisfy the Physicist or Astronomer; the
> mathematician's WOTY certainly does not measure up to that of the nurse or
> doctor.  Certainly the same can be said of the journalist's choice and that
> of the teacher.
>
> Regards,
> David
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of
> Mailbox
> Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2016 10:01 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: WOTY: "fake news"
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mailbox <mailbox at GRAMMARPHOBIA.COM>
> Subject:      WOTY: "fake news"
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> ----------------
> ---
>
> 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.=20
>
> 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>)=
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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



More information about the Ads-l mailing list