Status: New word
The American Dialect Society has announced its
words of the year for 2005 (links to a pdf file). A number of them are relevant to the study of hoaxes. For instance, the word of the year is Truthiness:
truthiness: the quality of stating concepts or facts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.
I suppose the opposite of truthiness would be hoaxiness. A few of the other words of the year include:
flee-ancée: runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks.
Whizzinator: a trademarked urinating device using a realistic prosthetic penis and synthetic urine in order to pass a drug test.
Bumper Nutz: fake testicles hung from the rear end of a vehicle.
In
Hippo Eats Dwarf I have a lot of word definitions like this. I included Whizzinator, but truthiness and flee-ancée are new to me, so they didn't make it in. Nor did bumper nutz, even though I knew what these are. (Prankplace, that company I have affiliate links to, actually
sells them.) If there's ever a second edition of the book, I'll put them in. (via
The Presurfer)
Update: As quite a few people have now pointed out, Stephen Colbert coined the meaning for "truthiness" used in the ADS's definition.
Comments
Colbert Nation...Hoooooooooooooooo!
Something else I didn't know I needed.
I've seen bras for cars at the auto parts store (I don't get that one, either); now I guess they also need jock straps.
I am the unofficial, o.k. well I'm just a guy. But the Colbert Nation is offended by this posting for it was not approved by Mr. Stephen Colbert. Yes he may have invented a word that is now in the dictionary, but that doesn't mean you can use it without his permission. You have been warned.
Signed,
Phil McBaggypants
Yes, it's awfully important to get permission to use words that are in the dictionary.
Signed,
Phil McBaggypants