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Home Front: Culture Wars
‘Truthiness' named word of the year
2006-12-09
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) — After 12 months of naked partisanship on Capitol Hill, on cable TV and in the blogosphere, the word of the year for 2006 is “truthiness.”
Shit. I mean, gosh darn it.
The word — if one can call it that — best summed up 2006, according to an online survey by dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster.
Not enough "taqiyya" votes. Too bad.
“Truthiness” was credited to Comedy Central satirist Stephen Colbert, who defined it as “truth that comes from the gut, not books.”
It just hit me that there's a subtle implication lurking in there: books are bad. Wottan asstard. Lol. Truthiness means something very different to me and, I believe, others as well...
“We're at a point where what constitutes truth is a question on a lot of people's minds, and truth has become up for grabs,” said Merriam-Webster president John Morse. “‘Truthiness' is a playful way for us to think about a very important issue.”
It means that the truth, the actual truth, has been nuked in favor of what feels good. And I'm right, lol. Fuck Colbert.
Other Top 10 finishers included “war,” “insurgent,” “sectarian” and “corruption.” But “truthiness” won by a 5-to-1 margin, Morse said.
Gosh, reality words lost out to a fantasy word. Go figure.
Colbert, who once derided the folks at Springfield-based Merriam-Webster as the “word police” and a bunch of “wordinistas,” was pleased.
Time to suck up, bitch.
“Though I'm no fan of reference books and their fact-based agendas, I am a fan of anyone who chooses to honour me,” he said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
I am known to suck among the very best.
“And what an honour,” he said. “Truthiness now joins the lexicographical pantheon with words like ‘squash,' ‘merry,' ‘crumpet,' ‘the,' ‘xylophone,' ‘circuitous,' ‘others' and others.”
Coming from you that means, well, nothing.
Colbert first uttered “truthiness” during an October 2005 broadcast of “The Colbert Report,” his parody of combative, conservative talk shows.
Never seen it - except as excerpted by others. It's "hitman" theater - a.k.a. modern journalism.
Posted by:.com

#13  Jeez. What about "ubuntu"? I mean, Clinton said it, Tutu used it in a book...
Posted by: tu3031   2006-12-09 21:03  

#12  Â“Truthiness” was credited to Comedy Central satirist Stephen Colbert, who defined it as “truth that comes from the gut, not books.”

"And we well know that 'truth' has a liberal bias ...."
Posted by: Mizzou Mafia   2006-12-09 20:31  

#11  Smells like macaca to me.
Posted by: wxjames   2006-12-09 18:17  

#10  He may define it that way, but that isn't how he uses it, either the day he introduced the term or since.

I was telling my boyfriend that, on righty blogs, "truthiness" was something that sounded true, or that someone thought ought to be true, but wasn't.

And then I realized that was the same as "truth that comes from the gut, not books."

I'm no fan of reference books and their fact-based agendas

I'm pretty sure that was meant as a joke.
Posted by: Angie Schultz   2006-12-09 14:00  

#9  Â“Truthiness” was credited to Comedy Central satirist Stephen Colbert, who defined it as “truth that comes from the gut, not books.”

He may define it that way, but that isn't how he uses it, either the day he introduced the term or since. He uses it exactly as we do, for something that feels like it ought to be true from a particular worldview, but isn't. This is the man who was shocked to discover, after joining The Daily Show, that he's a stereotypical liberal; before that he hadn't been aware he had any political opinions at all.

We'll go for taqiyya again next year, .com. ;-)
Posted by: trailing wife   2006-12-09 11:31  

#8  "Reach out with your feelings, Luke."
Posted by: James   2006-12-09 11:03  

#7  Ratz, I thought Rosebud was going to do a last minute darkhorse.
Posted by: Shipman   2006-12-09 09:15  

#6  Â“truth that comes from the gut, not books.”

sending up..take offs..parodies are Colbert's shtick.

in the main his target are Repub pols, Hollywood, and religious fundamentalists... [seems to me anyway]

He'd be alot funnier if he'd also spoof Democraps and all the little rat bastard traitors infesting media and academia; but then he'd be sending himself up.

take that Colbert!

:-)

Posted by: RD   2006-12-09 08:49  

#5  Colbert is a satirist. He's not advocating for "truthiness" (yes, I refuse to treat it as a real word), he's observing that more and more Americans are more interested in asserting their own "truthy" version of an issue than learning the objective reality. Karl Rove's "secret numbers" that showed the 2006 election would go well or the 2004 election polls that supposedly looked so good for Kerry (although that may have been an honest reading of inaccurate data) are examples.

Of course, his examples are conservatives who won't accept the "truth" of global warming, evolution, failure in Iraq, etc., etc. That's a different issue, but the larger point is worth discussing.
Posted by: Thinese Slugum3677   2006-12-09 07:09  

#4  xylophone, the only word in the German language containing a Y.

Nitpick: Xylitol
Posted by: Zenster   2006-12-09 03:36  

#3  xylophone, the only word in the German language containing a Y. But then I am horribly addicted to fact-based agendas and using German computer keyboards drove me nuts.

Funny comment, Zenster.
Posted by: phil_b   2006-12-09 02:36  

#2  Lol. Truthiness means something very different to me and, I believe, others as well...

Why does liberalism's much beloved 'infinite shades of gray' spring to mind?

I'm no fan of reference books and their fact-based agendas

Doesn't this statement essentially disinclude Colbert from all known reality?

I'll close by quoting Homer:

Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!

What? Like you were expecting something from "The Illiad"?
Posted by: Zenster   2006-12-09 01:29  

#1  It's not a word. It's a joke.
Posted by: gorb   2006-12-09 01:02  

00:00