this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2023
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submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

Factoid

A piece of unverified or inaccurate information that is presented in the press as factual, often as part of a publicity effort, and that is then accepted as true because of frequent repetition.

After I heard even Sam Harris misuse this word I just accepted it is now a synonym for a fact despite that the original meaning is the exact opposite.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Is such a fucking irony that factoid itself has become a factoid for "bit of trivia"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I’d say definitions are “unverified” given there’s no definition of true or false for one. By the commutative property of isness, that means definitions are factoids and we can eliminate one of the words.

See? We’re making plusforward here. Red commits are better than green commits. That oughta be the first definition in the dictionary imo.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You could almost say the evolving definition of factoid is in of itself an example of the original definition of a factoid.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

But you wouldn’t get points in the SAT for it

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago

Some words are poorly designed and IMO that's one of them. Sure, you can just make up words and give them whatever meaning you want, but it won't work so well if the word itself causes a bias of assumption towards another meaning, especially if it's the opposite of what you want it to mean.

Just like inflammable. "In" used in that context usually means "not". Whoever decided that it should mean "very" in this one case was IMO a bigger idiot than anyone who assumed it's opposite meaning afterwards. Either that or an asshole if it was deliberate.