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spuriosity
If that is an original coinage, sjmaxq, combining "spurious" and "curiosity", it's a clever one.
Bravo!
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>I may well be wrong, but if so it’ s a consistently wrong view! :)
Let's see if I've managed to cut through all your brythonic blather and welsh waffle, and found something bearing at least a fleeting resemblance to something that might be mistaken for a point.
Basically, it seems that you are saying that Vernon and I are using the word in a sense that is rapidly becoming archaic, is that it? That the word used to mean what we use it to mean, but no longer does, na?
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>teeth on edge over the use of the word "lay" for "lie down" That's just USn linguistic hegemony rearing its ugly head again, Mrs F. The usage which troubles you so is completely standard on the civilised side of the Atlantic. To quote from the late and much lamented Arsenal fan, Douglas Adams: In reply to:
"Now the world has gone to bed," Marvin droned,
"Darkness won't engulf my head,
"I can see by infra-red,
"How I hate the night."
He paused to gather the artistic and emotional strength to tackle the next verse.
"Now I lay me down to sleep,
"Try to count electric sheep,
"Sweet dream wishes you can keep,
"How I hate the night."
"Marvin!" hissed a voice.
(ea)
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"Now I lay me down to sleep,
But... but... but... that's different, Max! In this case it becomes a transitive verb: the object is me. [/splutter]
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In reply to:
But... but... but... that's different, Max! In this case it becomes a transitive verb: the object is me. [/splutter]
Well, Eddy, I don't want to jeopardise your respiration any further, so I will point out that la chère Kentuckienne did not make any distinction between transitive and intransitive use. Her exact words were:
"something that does is the w-i-d-e-spread use of lay for lie."
As it happens, the intransitive use is also quite common up here, so it's probably in the best interests of her dental wellbeing if she doesn't come here. 
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> rapidly becoming archaic
No.
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If sjmaaxq got it wrong, could I impose on your time and ask you to explain how? In your earlier response you said: In reply to:
My position is that of a right Angle ;)
1. The suffix ~oid originally meant ‘like or sharing some characteristics’
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=-oid
2. When it got appended to ‘fact’, the resulting word got used to initially mean ‘like a fact’ in an ironic deprecatory sense
That is the sense in which sjmaxq and I use it. Then you say further in your reply,
In reply to:
3. Because these were often spurious and short items as Bing notes, it subsequently picked up the connotation of ‘brief fact’
4. By retrofitting this has extended the denotative value of ~oid to include ‘small’, making it similar to ~ette
5. Although the majority of the usage panel are still mostly uncomfortable, it’s a change, it’s happening, and it’s a comparatively rare example of one you can actually observe in progress.
You talk about it "subsequently picking up a new connotation", and that there is "a change happening". If the change of which you speak is not the shift in the meaning of factoid from its initial one to the new one, what is it?
All needling aside, you've piqued my curiosity now, and I want to understand what you're saying. Or rather, I want to figure out why I have not been able to understand it up to this point. 
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> If the change of which you speak is not the shift in the meaning of factoid from its initial one to the new one, what is it?
An extension of meaning. Sure, if that became such a dominant usage, it's possible to imagine a world in which the very meaning of the suffix could get wrenched entirely into a new denotation: at that point, 'humanoid' might come to denote 'a small human-like creature'. I can't see evidence of that yet. But I think I do see evidence of language change producing an additional denotative sense for 'questionoid' (through repeated connotative association with the context of 'small'.)
By the way, if anyone thinks this is a trivial word to be loading so much attention on, it's mainly of interest to me as I said above: it's quite rare to be able to pin down language change until well after the event - like the old favourite 'nice'. It is also worth noting that language change often happens at the margins: amongst young people, non-invested people, and through language collision processes. I think this is such a case. <shrug> could well be wrong, of course.
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Sorry, mav. It seems that Vernon and I were having so much fun tag-teaming you that we both missed this crucial little phrase: In reply to:
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."
Obviously I can't speak for Vernon, but I will try to read more carefully before putting the boot in next time.
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