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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 273
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 273 |
>What’s crawled up your dunny and bit you?! ;0~
I sniffed a bit of vacillation, as if soneone was trying to subtly abandon a former position, even perhaps trying to welsh on previous support for a repected cleric and judge. Being familar with trying to have a bob each way, I know what it looks like when someone else tries it on.
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
What’s crawled up your dunny and bit you?! ;0~
An addernoid - obviously.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
How about:
3: A piece of information that, while true, is too insignificant to be considered a full-fledged fact.
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
> addernoid :) The equivocation was actually m’esteemed friend Mr B: I agree with Father Steve and the Southrons that factoid should and maybe does mean not quite true alleged fact.I think this was subtly deceptive since I took FS to say that quite clearly the suffix meant something else when combined with the root 'fact', despite the origin and other forms of the suffix suggesting what it should mean: 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. 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=-oid2. When it got appended to ‘fact’, the resulting word got used to initially mean ‘like a fact’ in an ironic deprecatory sense 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. I may well be wrong, but if so it’ s a consistently wrong view! :)
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Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 2
stranger
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stranger
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 2 |
Those geeky enough to be familiar with the workings of a Microsoft product called BizTalk will know of "functoids" - small but not insignificant functions used to perform processing on data items passing through. Sounds more like something suitable for unmentionable ailments!
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
Welcome to the madhouse, hk :)
Thanks - another example from daily modern life that has garnered a sense of 'small' as part of its denotative value.
> data items passing through
And perhaps it had also gained by association with haemorrhoids! (as suggested above)
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
I like mav's five points. I see a factoid as being a single, briefly expressed fact that, although interesting or surprising, is usually of so little import that it isn’t worth checking whether or not it is accurate, you just accept it (or not). So, it is small, in the sense of brief, it is presented and accepted as a fact and often has an element of Ripley about it. Not sure who I’m agreeing with here (if anyone  ). Edit: Hi hk, and welcome.
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
here's a factoid for you, based on the AHD data posted by mav: 27% of the Usage Panel has no useage at all for the word factoid.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
a right Angle Groan-n-n-n!  Welcome to you, hk. Several new people today: yay! Welcome all! The use of factoid in either sense doesn't bother me, but something that does is the w-i-d-e-spread use of lay for lie. Good thing I've got a dentist appointment pretty soon: every time I hear something like, "I'm going to lay down for a little while" it just sets my teeth on edge.
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Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154 |
For me it's the other way, You lie about sneaking off to lay down.
edit; well not you personally
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