Lure
September 11, 2002, 5:37am
1
When did this bit of fluff enter into everyday vernacular?
Growing up I’d read numerous “did you know” columns,but never encountered the word factoid until USA Today printed a column (70s?) called that.
Seems to me another example of infantizing perfectly normal adult words (“hey kids here’s a factoid”-as if we can’t grasp the meaning of fact)
When did this particular one start?
Any cites?
This doesn’t answer your question of when, but it does shed a little light on the subject…
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 anthrpos, “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.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
It diminishes the significance of the aleged fact, making the offense less grievous is said fact turns out to be horse pucky. Same as attaching -let (meaning “small one”) as in leaflet, pamphlet, piglet. But -let doesn’t attach well to “fact”, so -oid (resembling, having the appearance of, related to) was used instead.
Fact: Spiro Agnew was the 39th vice president of the United States.
Factoid: The letters in “Spiro Agnew” can be rearranged to spell “Grow a Spine”.
muttrox
September 11, 2002, 5:06pm
4
FWIW, I first saw it on CNN. They used to show a “factoid” just as they were going to commercial.