this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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[โ€“] [email protected] 36 points 10 months ago (3 children)

A factoid is something that looks like a fact, but is not

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The universally accepted meaning is:

a brief or trivial item of news or information

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Interestingly, here's what Merriam Webster says about the origin of the word:

We can thank Norman Mailer for factoid: he used the word in his 1973 book Marilyn (about Marilyn Monroe), and he is believed to be the coiner of the word. In the book, he explains that factoids are "facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper, creations which are not so much lies as a product to manipulate emotion in the Silent Majority." Mailer's use of the -oid suffix (which traces back to the ancient Greek word eidos, meaning "appearance" or "form") follows in the pattern of humanoid: just as a humanoid appears to be human but is not, a factoid appears to be factual but is not. The word has since evolved so that now it most often refers to things that decidedly are facts, just not ones that are significant.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

So you decided to ignore the last sentence?

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

No, I've just looked it up after reading your comment

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago