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Archiver > ABOUT-WORDS > 2002-08 > 1029084901


From: "Roger Hill" <>
Subject: Profiles (Re: Factoid abuse, fillers, airy nothings) (Re: Words that have been misconst...
Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2002 11:55:01 -0500
References: <bb.246043f2.2a87ec75@aol.com>


Rovere noticed that J.F. Kennedy, who had
just written 'Profiles in Courage', made no
criticism of McCarthy.

Roger
---
----- Original Message -----
From: <>
To: <>
Sent: Sunday, August 11, 2002 11:36 AM
Subject: Re: Factoid abuse, fillers, airy nothings (Re: Words that have been
misconst...


> In a message dated 8/11/2002 7:52:26 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
> writes:
>
> Factoid by McCarthy---Sounds possible. Machine Gunner Joe had two spin
> doctors on his staff, John Kennedy and Richard Nixon (and Bobby was
hanging
> around in the hallway).
>
> Fred B.
> =============================
>
>
> >
> >
> > CNN institutionalized the abuse of 'factoid' with its
> > hourly factoid feature. The CNN factoid was nothing
> > more than a factette, the kind of thing that used to appear
> > in newspapers of yesteryear as a 'filler' -- to fill a smidgen
> > of unused space at the bottom of a column here and there.
> >
> > 'CNN trivia' would be a better description of what
> > that yawn-off of an organization does.
> >
> > The OED, erroneously in my opinion, credits
> > the coinage of 'factoid' to Norman Mailer.
> > I'd say credit Dwight MacDonald in his
> > Esquire magazine phase (though the two
> > knew each well).
> >
> > Macdonald may have got the concept, though
> > not the word, from Richard Rovere's book
> > about Senator Joe McCarthy (1909-57) --
> > -- he less than your full-fledged demagogue,
> > more of a district attorney with an above-average
> > craving for power, as MacDonald puts it.
> >
> > As I recollect from Rovere's book, a typical
> > McCarthy gambit was to tease the news media
> > with hints of a big revelation. After milking it dry
> > and having ultimately no significant revelation handy,
> > he would put a spin on the non-appearance of a
> > vital source to testify. This non-appearance
> > would then become a NY Times headline reading
> > "Committee Seeks Mystery Witness".
> >
> > So it may have been a fact that McCarthy
> > was short someone's input from somewhere.
> > That airy nothing thereupon took on media
> > substance -- and that was your factoid, and
> > very different from CNN's trivia.
> >
> > Roger
> > ---
> > John Halsey Flannery wrote:
> >
> > > Has anyone else noticed that the word 'Factoid', which means
"something
> > that appears to be, or is touted as, a fact, but really isn't", has been
> > misused by the popular Media to mean "a small fact".
> > >
> > > I wonder what other words have been similarly mangled by our popular
> > Media.
> > >
> > > Halsey
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
> ==============================
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