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OP
OP
(Why do I feel like the plural of suffix should be suffices?)
SciFi fans knows that an android is a thing (such as a robot) which is like a man but not a man. SciFi fans also know that a creature which is humanoid looks somewhat human but is not human. An asteroid is like a star but is not a star. Anthropoids are creatures which are like (and are related to) humans but aren't humans. I guess an alkaloid is a substance which is similar to an alka but isn't an alka.
So what's up with factoid? Following the pattern described above, a factoid should be like a fact but not a fact and therefore untrue or only partially true or almost true. But factoid is used to mean a little, curious, trivial, interesting fact. How come?
Because the World's gone mad!
Mad, I tell you. Mad!
But perhaps the two aren't such a stretch apart... humanoid > less than human > oid=less... ?
ah, I've got Billie Holiday playing just now on this fine June night... "Me, Myself & I" trickling out into the balmy hayfield...
edit: not so balmy as barmy spellin'!
For All We Know....
formerly known as etaoin...
Perhaps in some places the ratios vary, and hence the confusion about what factoid means. I agree with Father Steve and the Southrons that factoid should and maybe does mean not quite true alleged fact.
Bingley
Bingley
I think there is a clear case of language change going on in front of our eyes on this one - ~oid started out as ‘like or not quite real’ and has gathered a denotation of ‘small’ through repeated connotative association.
Websters merely records the two senses:
Main Entry: fac•toid
Pronunciation: 'fak-"toid
Function: noun
1 : an invented fact believed to be true because of its appearance in print
2 : a brief and usually trivial news item
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=factoid
American Hurtage has an effective marker as a usage note:
NOUN:
1. A piece of unverified or inaccurate information that is presented in the press as factual, often as part of a publicity effort, and that is then accepted as true because of frequent repetition: “What one misses finally is what might have emerged beyond both facts and factoids—a profound definition of the Marilyn Monroe phenomenon” (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt). 2. Usage Problem A brief, somewhat interesting fact.
OTHER FORMS: fac•toid al —ADJECTIVE
USAGE NOTE: The –oid suffix normally imparts the meaning “resembling, having the appearance of” to the words it attaches to. Thus the anthropoid apes are the apes that are most like humans (from Greek anthr pos, “human being”). In some words –oid has a slightly extended meaning—“having characteristics of, but not the same as,” as in humanoid, a being that has human characteristics but is not really human. Similarly, factoid originally referred to a piece of information that appears to be reliable or accurate, as from being repeated so often that people assume it is true. The word still has this meaning in standard usage. Seventy-three percent of the Usage Panel accepts it in the sentence It would be easy to condemn the book as a concession to the television age, as a McLuhanish melange of pictures and factoids which give the illusion of learning without the substance. •Factoid has since developed a second meaning, that of a brief, somewhat interesting fact, that might better have been called a factette. The Panelists have less enthusiasm for this usage, however, perhaps because they believe it to be confusing. Only 43 percent of the panel accepts it in Each issue of the magazine begins with a list of factoids, like how many pounds of hamburger were consumed in Texas last month. Many Panelists prefer terms such as statistics, trivia, useless facts, and just plain facts in this sentence.
http://www.bartleby.com/61/74/F0007400.html
An architect friend of mine refers with bitter disparagement to "bungaloids", and there is no doubt that he is referring to small domestic habitations scattered in the countryside, with a further connotative connection with haemorrhoids!
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/haemorrhoid?view=uk
its connotation is surely mostly just like the suffix ~ette, leading to a sense of diminutive.(ea)Now you say
In reply to:I agree on the primary sense. But FS was correct in drawing attention to the other meaning - it exists, it's out there.(ea)
and go on to reference a dictionary which lists the meaning I offered as the first of two.
What size flipflops do you wear?
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=primary
What’s crawled up your dunny and bit you?! ;0~
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