• warbond@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    2 days ago

    but I use the factoid all the time

    My favorite “factoid” is that the -oid part originally means “resembling,” like a humanoid is something that only looks human, so technically a factoid would be something that only resembles fact. However, I’m not a dirty prescriptivist and I understood perfectly what you meant, so please carry on.

    • burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      2 days ago

      Presciptivism is where it’s at, broseidon! I use factoid for when something seems like a fact, but you can’t verify it right then. I know the internet often uses it for something quoted so much that people take it as fact even though it’s false.

      Wikipedia just hates us all. I don’t want it to be a brief truth, waaah!

      • _stranger_@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        2 days ago

        I hate the concept of “brief truth”. The Germans probably have a word for it. things can stop being true. Everything is a brief truth on a long enough timeline. By this definition “the moon exists” is a factoid because very briefly from now (on a cosmological timeline) that’s practically already false. Bah!