[Ads-l] "Alternative facts" for EOTY

[Jonathan Lighter]

The Net finds numerous recent posts asserting that leading self-help guru
Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote, "What is the truth but a lie agreed upon?"

And if a bigshot said it, it must be true.

GB reveals no authentic attributions to Freddy, and none before 2016.

A blog site confidently attributes "Truth Is a Lie Agreed Upon" to (wait
for it)..."Abraham Lincoln."

Cf. the older and ever-popular "History is a lie agreed upon."

So who, Garson, really introduced the phrase attributed to Nietzsche?

JL

On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 8:30 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> > On Jan 24, 2017, at 8:14 PM, Joel Berson <berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
> >
> > A la "alt right"?
> >
> > Joel
>
> Seems so.  OED, s.v. “alt”:
> Alternative; spec. denoting a version of some cultural phenomenon (orig.
> and esp. music) that is regarded as outside the mainstream of its genre.
> [citing “alt.rock” and “alt country”]
>
> So alt facts would be a cultural phenomenon regarded as outside the
> mainstream of the fact genre (in being, well, not true).
>
> LH
> >
> >
> >      From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2017 8:02 PM
> > Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "Alternative facts" for EOTY
> >
> > MSNBC is now using the short form "alt facts."
> >
> > JL
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 3:06 PM, Jonathan Lighter <
> wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Wrong! Wrong!
> >>
> >> Not a falsehood! It's an important alternate fact.
> >>
> >> Also note my signature line of many years standing.
> >>
> >> JL
> >>
> >> --
> >> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > "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
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > 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