Linguists Vote 'Truthiness' Word of 2005

[POHeerwig]

A panel of linguists has decided the word that best reflects 2005 is "truthiness," defined as the quality of stating concepts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than the facts...

Michael Adams, a professor at North Carolina State University who specializes in lexicology, said "truthiness" means "truthy, not facty."...

"The national argument right now is, one, who's got the truth and, two, who's got the facts," he said. "Until we can manage to get the two of them back together again, we're not going make much progress."

The group of linguists, editors and academics agreed the most useful word was "podcast" _ a digital feed containing audio or video files for downloading to an MP3 player.

In a runoff for the most creative word, "whale tail," the appearance of a thong above the waistband, beat out "muffin top," the bulge of flesh hanging over the top of low-riding jeans.

"Truthy" not "facty" hmmm... let me count the ways with which I can apply this new verbal jousting gem. Whale tail & muffin top are pretty good though.

Anyone have any others to share? [I should be afraid to ask that question, shouldn't I?]

 

[Peterkro]

This would be Linguists in the US I take it.

 

[homerjward]

did stephen colbert coin that or was it first used elsewhere?

 

[POHeerwig]

Yes. Sorry about that - "American Dialect Society" http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=1140914&tw=wn_wire_story

 

[Chaszmyr]

Since Noam Chomsky is really the only linguist of the last 200 years worth paying attention to, linguists come up with stupid stuff like this to get their names in the news

 

[POHeerwig]

Since Noam Chomsky is really the only linguist of the last 200 years worth paying attention to, linguists come up with stupid stuff like this to get their names in the news

Granted, Chaszmyr - but I'd argue that even Chomsky would have an appreciation for 'truthiness'; he seems to be a firm believer in separating reality and truth from 'thoughts' and 'beliefs'.