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Word of the Year - "Truthiness"
KingSkippus writes "Stephen Colbert calls it 'truth that comes from the gut, not books.' Merriam-Webster calls it their 2006 Word of the Year. The word, first introduced [Windows media] on 'The Word' segment of The Colbert Report, won by a five-to-one margin. In spite of Colbert's ironic dismissal of dictionaries and other reference books, will Colbert's coined word actually be added to those books? With media outlets like CNN and MSNBC covering it, the idea may very well have truthiness."
Ironic that the post here misuses the word...
'truth that comes from the gut, not books.' We've already got a word for that -- it's called instinct. And it's often not related to genuine truth at all.
As in, "I'm the decider".
I applaude the truthitude shown by this article.
D
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I don't have any facts to back this up, but this just feels like the right decision.
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
In spite of Colbert's ironic dismissal of dictionaries and other reference books, will Colbert's coined word actually be added to those books?
He doesn't just dismiss them. He views them as a direct threat to the only *true* primary souce, one's own gut instinct.
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Colbert might be "funny ha ha" but he is NOT a journalist and makes NO serious commentary on politics or society. His words are no more pithier than a Beavis and Butthead skit. IN fact I would have to say that Beavis' "I am the great cornhoilio! I need tee pee for my bunghole! Are you threatening me?" are words far deeper than ANYTHING Colbert has ever said.
I used to think Colbert was kind of cute in the way that he parodied the lefty view of Republicans. But now that they've taken him to be a serious journalist, I find both he and the liberals completely sad. Thankfully, in another four years, Bush will have proven that he is capable because Iraq will have proven out to be a success, the right will have the Whitehouse for another four years, the Democrats will have lost whatever power they gained in the last elections, and the Ownership Society will have proven out as well ensuring more Republican wins for generations to come. Ideally, I think the time has come to end the two party system and make the Democratic party illegal for the protection of future generations.
I foresee a day when the Democratic party is finally viewed as it should have always been: equivalent to the Nazi party (they were socialists too) or the Communist party. There was once a time when the Communist party was also just as serious in this great land as the Democrats are. Thankfully, we took care of that in the 50s and we'll do the same to the Democrats today. In the marketplace of ideas of the political arena, the only parties that should be allowed to compete are the ones worthy of serious consideration: Republicans and Libertarians. Maybe the Contitution party as well. The ones that should be eliminated are the ones that claim to want to help the poor or the "underdogs". America has no room for people who won't take it on themselves to work hard and succeed.
The big names in news MSNBC, CNN, FoxNews, they all know it's true, in fact some of them have a sort of obsession with Colbert and Stewart. They are fun. They are reporting many of the same stories, just not doing it like they're having a root canal done at the same time. And they're not afraid to poke fun at everyone, including themselves. It's very refreshing. THAT is why they have this kind of clout. They are respected.
About a week ago the tag for articles suspected to be hoaxes read, "The truthiness of this article has been questioned." I would have brought it up, but I couldn't figure out where to do so. It's since been fixed.
The word, first introduced [Windows media]...
Try:
The word, first introduced...
"I'm feeling truthsome": Malcolm Reynolds to Inara.
Despite my unending devotion to Mr. Colbert, I must point out that he did not invent the word truthiness. He, like Microsoft did with their use of the word Genuine, gave it a new meaning.
Truthiness dates from 1824 or earlier:
v es/002586.html)
OED: "1824 J. J. GURNEY in Braithwaite Mem. (1854) I. 242 Everyone who knows her is aware of her truthiness."
(http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archi
Not that Colbert and his writers don't deserve credit for this excellent word - I was one of the 5 to 1 who voted for it.
Gut instinct. Yeah right.
What that means is "Truthiness is what agrees with my basic prejudices".
Bitter and proud of it.
"Fo Sho" lost its appeal circa 2000 with the release of Snoop Dogg's The Last Meal but the term was not universally disposed as a term of affirmation until the release of Jay-Z's The Blueprint circa 2001 due to the popularity of the single Izzo(H.O.V.A) which borrowed heavily from Snoop Dogg's supposed "Crip Colloquialism". In actuality the proper terminology to express agreement with another party would be "Fo Shizzle" which is not "Crip Colloquialism" but a form of expression first invented by an often forgotten Funk band known as Gap Band
;-)
What are they teaching people in school these days?
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
You need to look up the definition. Or at least watch the FV that I linked to.
Colbert says:
The fact that the "wordinistas" over at Websters have made "Truthiness" their 2006 Word of the Year is about as ironic as it gets.
Even if you don't watch the FV that I linked to, my own submission says:
sigh I hate explaining basic things such as what irony is, but since you didn't get it, allow me to direct you to one of those noisome reference books, Webster's online dictionary. Please pay particular notice to definition 3a: "incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result."
It is possible (i.e. the "actual result of a sequence of events" is) that Colbert's word "truthiness" may eventually end up in one or more dictionaries. Colbert's satire (do I have to explain what that is, too?) dismisses books such as dictionaries precisely because they don't include words like "truthiness" (i.e. "the normal or expected result").
Feel free to point out exactly why you don't think that's ironic. Surely you don't think that conspicuous sarcasm is the only type of irony that exists?
If anyone who actually has a brain wants to mod the parent down and undo to the work of your unfortunate Slashdot peers who had mod points but no clue, it would probably be worthwhile. Meanwhile, I find your comment a little ironic as well. And in case you missed that, too, it's because you're using a definition of irony that must obviously be derived from "truthiness" (i.e. the actual result) instead of the real definition of the word (i.e. the expected result) in your comment. Are you starting to understand?
I'm not an American, but I do not agree with your post. Somewhere within your post there is a valid point, but you missed it by focusing your ad hominem attack on the US.
Firstly, as other posters have said, watch The Colbert Report. It is intelligent and brilliant satire, the purpose of his invented words is satire, and is also valuable and necessary commentary on the manipulation of words by the (often right-wing extremist) media such as Fox News. It is also very funny.
As to nature of manipulation of words, the biggest culprit is the advertising, promotion and marketing industry. They are closely followed by News Corp (owned by Murdoch - who is Australian, not American.) Please see the documentary "Outfoxed" if you have not done so. Bear mind that Murdoch's claws extend far beyond the US, they also own TV and Newspapers in Australia, South Africa, China, and in the UK (The Sun, The Times, Sky, and recently part of ITV).
Much of the advertising and promotion industry is international, and UK agencies play a significant part in that - Saatchi and Saatchi as one example.
Evidence of ad manipulation exists in words such as "free", "diet", "low fat", "extra" and many, many, many more. That's universal and also exists in other languages other than English.
One of the most beautiful and wonderful things about English is it's ability to be bent and stretched and often broken without losing it's meaning, in fact it often gains depth and poetry from such manipulation.
If you were to go back in time to the 16th Century I'm certain Ye Olde Slashe Dotte would have a culpatory post by M'lord Scumptious listing his bile at the disgraceful disregard for Her Most Noble Majestie's Englishe by that upstart proletarian Mr Shakespeare.
Seriously if you can understand it, it works. Grammar Nazis, you can all burn forever in Hell. We can blame Dr Samuel Johnson for introducing language fascism, which remains utterly unnecessary to humanity.
And finally, if you have a chance, do read Bill Bryson's book, "Made in America" for an eye-opening history of how American English is, in fact, more correct in many cases.
Oh, and PS, if you believe the Americans have no love of language I can only assume you have never read Steinbeck.
Nullity?
So, if I started pulling out your hair one follicle at a time, upon which plucking would you go from being 0% bald to 100% bald?
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Absolute communicable truth (not to be confused with recitation of facts) is an ideal, and as such unattainable (check the philosophy section of your bookstore). Of course, the very (re)emergence of "truthiness" suggests that in some cultures/contexts this is a really useful loophole which allows an alternative gut-level relationship to be utilised (rather conveniently) for good or ill. In the old days, when it was "on-side", this was referred to as wisdom; now it's more likely to be spin.
My favourite candidate for word of the year would be "moasting" - a combination of moaning and boasting which is all the rage at social events or workplace interactions here in the UK. Alas, as a new portmanteau word, it hasn't made it into the dictionary yet.
--As if French or English, or any language in the world for that matter, sprang into being fully conceived, or worse, that the current state of a given language is by some holy decree, its final, perfect form. That's just Ego and Fear talking.
But honestly, the word 'Truthiness' is not one I'll ever find myself using in earnest, because it was invented through a sense of irony to make fun of Brain-dead Texans with Too Much Power.
It's not a word. It's a joke. And a bitter one, at that.
But if it somehow, (*cough* through ignorance *cough*), it does become a well-used word without any sense of irony attached, then so be it. But honestly, the word doesn't roll off the tongue or really describe something desperate for description enough to affect the public popular lexicon any time soon, IMHO.
Now, can we talk about something else? This whole non-issue reminds me of the banal stupidity of the whole Political Correctness thing; that is, it's too retarded for words and should be stamped out immediately so that it doesn't piss everybody off and waste enormous amounts of time and energy.
-FL
Fine. Read over the definition of 'truthiness' carefully, and suggest a single-word synonym. The only one I can think of is 'bellyfeel,' and because of its blatant associations with 1984, there was no way Colbert could have plausibly pretended to mean it.
"Collateral damage" wasn't coined because some American general was too lazy to look up a synonym for "demolished schoolhouse". You cite laziness as the primary motivator, when in fact the primary motivation was to obfuscate rather than to reveal. This sort of linguistic shenanigans isn't healthy, but neither is it an entirely American phenomenon.
"Infomercial" isn't just marketspeak for "well, okay, it's a commercial, but we want you to focus on the fact that we're giving you *information*" as you seem to suggest. In Americanese, it refers to a specific format of commercial, thirty minutes in length, used by many TV channels to fill crappy time slots with programming that they get paid for, rather than programming they have to pay for. Since it has a specific and unique meaning, it's a bad example.
I'm perfectly fine with "blog" and "podcasting". Thin-slicing sounds like a hyped word for "snap judgment". I'd never heard of captology, and I really can't make heads or tails of it. It seems to embundle a lot of semi-related ideas that all sound intriguing. "Folksonomy" probably has some close synonyms in anthropology, but I don't know how well the mainstream would digest them. I certainly can't think of a synonym that I could use and be understood by most people.
Sure, there is some element of hype to many of these new terms, but branding an old idea with a new term might also give you the chance to say something new about it. Take 'blog' for example. You can't call it an 'online diary' or 'web journal' because the 'diary' and 'journal' both imply a certain need for privacy, when you're actually publishing to the whole world. Even the 'log' portion of 'web log' implies something about the nature of the communication that is patently untrue. Anyhow, can you see the mainstream media sitting up and taking notice of "the online journalling community"? Using an old word starts people with the assumption that there is nothing fundamentally new going on, and I don't think that's the case with blogging.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go drive my horseless carriage somewhere.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
This is so bizarre. An online poll gets rigged and suddenly it's a news story on slashdot? I wonder who does the marketing for Mr. Colbert. They are good. This is even better than the time he insults Bush to his face, getting tremendous recognition and publicity, and it's spun on slashdot as "taking a huge risk". Given the number of Stephen Colbert stories that sneak onto slashdot, one wonders if they're part of some monstrous Colbert-benefiting astroturf campaign.