[Ads-l] WOTY: "fake news"

Thu Dec 8 22:24:47 UTC 2016

I prefer "post-factual."

You can nominalize it, too, and say things like, "That's just another one
of his post-factuals."

I'm saying it constantly.

JL

On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 1:31 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> Well, it seems only fair then to regard “truthiness” as a ripoff of
> “post-truth”, which was attested in its current sense in 1992, as the
> Oxford Dictionaries piece points out:
>
> *******
> Post-truth seems to have been first used in this meaning in a 1992 essay
> by the late Serbian-American playwright Steve Tesich in The Nation
> magazine. Reflecting on the Iran-Contra scandal and the Persian Gulf War,
> Tesich lamented that ‘we, as a free people, have freely decided that we
> want to live in some post-truth world’.
> *******
>
> Of course in a post-truth world, none of this really matters…
>
> LH
>
>
> > On Dec 8, 2016, at 1:23 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> wrote:
> >
> > Thanks for your suggestion, Pat. "Fake News" is thematically related
> > to "truthiness" which was voted 2005 word of the year at the American
> > Dialect Society meeting. Another related term is "post-truth", and
> > Colbert reacted humorously when it was recently highlighted by Oxford
> > Dictionaries:
> >
> > Article: Stephen Colbert thinks 'post-truth' is a ripoff of 'truthiness'
> > Author: Christian Holub
> > Date: November 18, 2016
> > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.ew.
> com_article_2016_11_18_stephen-2Dcolbert-2Dpost-
> 2Dtruth-2Dtruthiness&d=CwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=
> wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=
> SXOQpuEd9yk80aDi1ScKKjCa7T6RQ-U9-PlRQ7YSVDA&s=oK_
> mEQwPnsG9b8WtQDwBAu4hTDP_J_2U4vVY6TQK3mI&e=
> >
> > [Begin excerpt]
> > Oxford Dictionaries recently announced that they chose "post-truth" as
> > their word of the year for 2016. . . . Stephen Colbert has a few
> > problems with this choice, though, and not just because "post-truth"
> > is actually two words.
> >
> > "Post-truth is clearly just a rip-off of my 2006 word of the year,
> > 'truthiness,'" Colbert said.
> >
> > He reiterated the definition: "The belief in what you feel to be true,
> > rather than what the facts will support," which is definitely
> > perilously close to Oxford Dictionaries’ definition of "post-truth."
> > Colbert tried to act gracious, though, and imitated an award-show
> > nominee cheering for their rival from the crowd.
> > [End excerpt]
> >
> > Perhaps "fake news" might be viewed as an extremal version of
> "truthiness".
> >
> > In 1807 Thomas Jefferson penned a scalding letter about his
> > unhappiness with misinformation in newspapers:
> >
> > [Begin excerpt]
> > Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself
> > becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real
> > extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are
> > in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies
> > of the day
> > [End excerpt]
> >
> > Jefferson provocatively suggested the advantages of not reading the
> newspaper:
> >
> > [Begin excerpt]
> > I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better
> > informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is
> > nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors.
> > He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details
> > are all false.
> > [End excerpt]
> >
> > A citation for the Jefferson letter is included in the QI entry about
> > a popular Twain misquotation:
> >
> > If You Don’t Read the Newspaper You Are Uninformed, If You Do Read the
> > Newspaper You Are Misinformed
> > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__
> quoteinvestigator.com_2016_12_03_misinformed_&d=CwIFaQ&c=-
> dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=
> SXOQpuEd9yk80aDi1ScKKjCa7T6RQ-U9-PlRQ7YSVDA&s=3-kF2P23H3a_
> KImxaTn88uvZaQhTIABEb87rMhrHSbg&e=
> >
> > Garson
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 10:01 AM, Mailbox <mailbox at grammarphobia.com>
> wrote:
> >> 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 (https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-
> 3A__www.grammarphobia.com_blog&d=CwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=
> wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=
> SXOQpuEd9yk80aDi1ScKKjCa7T6RQ-U9-PlRQ7YSVDA&s=
> OwAINyadHK9JYVp4Ig0EeCW5JVcrfjRAcHz3AwAAujU&e=  <https://urldefense.
> proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.grammarphobia.com_blog&d=CwIFaQ&c=-
> dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=
> SXOQpuEd9yk80aDi1ScKKjCa7T6RQ-U9-PlRQ7YSVDA&s=
> OwAINyadHK9JYVp4Ig0EeCW5JVcrfjRAcHz3AwAAujU&e= >)
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - https://urldefense.proofpoint.
> com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.americandialect.org&d=CwIFaQ&
> c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=
> SXOQpuEd9yk80aDi1ScKKjCa7T6RQ-U9-PlRQ7YSVDA&s=PUbVJfxk_-
> BBKZUFa4zlV1mcrpOhMUV5XkCCq7nRke4&e=
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - https://urldefense.proofpoint.
> com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.americandialect.org&d=CwIFaQ&
> c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=
> SXOQpuEd9yk80aDi1ScKKjCa7T6RQ-U9-PlRQ7YSVDA&s=PUbVJfxk_-
> BBKZUFa4zlV1mcrpOhMUV5XkCCq7nRke4&e=
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> 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."

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