Per CNN.com (here’s an image of the top half of the article for the sake of ironic humor in the subhead):
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.
Had any LR readers heard this word before? I hadn’t. I did a Google search for it, however, and found it in frequent use on the leftist blog the “DailyKos.” I also found a couple of references from AirAmerica radio. It sounds like a leftist or relativist’s kind of word to me; perhaps putting truth in quotation marks is no longer adequately communicating doubt that there is such a thing as objective truth.
The definition of truthiness comes from a Dr. Michael Adams, identified as an N.C. State linguist (it’s probably OK to assume he’s not an NCSU office assistant ? nor this guy), who says it means “truthy, not facty.” (Those highfalutin linguists sure do love their fancy words, don’t they?) His explanation reinforces my impression of the word:
“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.”
That’s what the “national argument” is about? Does that mean someone needs to “speak truth to power” ? or “speak facts to power”?
On brief reflection, I think that if I were asked to pick word or phrase of the year 2005, I would also have favored one of the depictions of scandalous behavior following Hurricane Katrina ? specifically, the eminently useful stuck on stupid.
