Friday, September 16, 2005
Word of the day is: banausic, spotted here, but apparently a favourite of Norman Mailer's.
Norman Mailer also happens to have invented the word "factoid". He intended it mean "something which has no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper". That has a conceptual resonance with Vic Reeves' "84% of all statistics are made up on the spot". The fact that factoid now has a (quite different) real meaning, in no way diminishes it's rather amazing, possibly self-referential, coining.
Norman Mailer also happens to have invented the word "factoid". He intended it mean "something which has no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper". That has a conceptual resonance with Vic Reeves' "84% of all statistics are made up on the spot". The fact that factoid now has a (quite different) real meaning, in no way diminishes it's rather amazing, possibly self-referential, coining.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]