Amid the dizzy year-enders, it’s best to do what the New York Times did. It tried to squeeze 2005 into a handy list of catchwords and phrases. The paper was not unaware that the exercise could turn out to be foolhardy. Words are wicked, they have hidden recesses and histories. Meanings flicker and change. Meaning also depends on who’s saying the word. Many have a gossamery lifespan. It was brave of NYT to put out a list.
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But the most delectable, and most sobering, word on the NYT list is ‘truthiness’. ‘‘Not quite fact, not quite fiction, it’s neither here nor there. But it’s all over cable news’’ says the paper.
For all the self-conscious haze about its meaning, and perhaps because of it, truthiness is a wonderfully portable term. It will look as much at home in public discussion in India as it is in Bush’s America. It’s likely to belong to 2006 as it did to 2005.
The "definition" that granny Herald gave was "...the truth, not as it is, but as we might like it to be."
As in here...
The American Dialect Society, in its 16th annual words of the year vote, has happened upon the word its says best reflects 2005.
The term? "Truthiness" -- which the panel of linguists defines as the quality of stating concepts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than the facts. It was reportedly first heard on the Colbert Report, a satirical mock news show on the Comedy Channel.
Yep, and we all know where that started.
1 comment:
That’s pretty good…Colbert also invented another fun word: Trustigious (trustworthy and prestigious).
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