This is actually a pit threat in disguise, but just to make sure, I post it here.
This is a rather redundant expression, isn’t it? Because “apocryphal” already implies we’re only speaking of possibilities, right? Yet I see the combination popping up where the authors ought to now better, leading me to fear that I might be the one in error.
(And while I’m half-pitting… stop calling things paradoxes when they’re only slightly weird!)
Yes and no. The original meaning of apocryphal is indeed “something of undeterminate authenticity”.
However, the common acception of the word is closer to a definite bogosity assessment. If someone tells me a story, and someone else says it’s apocryphal, I am to understand that the story is either plain not true, or an embellished version of the truth. “Probably apocryphal” introduces a level of doubt : it’s more likely to be bull than not, but you never know.
There’s a difference. If I call something an apocryphal story, I mean that I’ve done some research and found that it’s pretty clearly not true. If I call it a possibly apocryphal story, I mean that I have suspicions that it’s not true since some details don’t sound right, but I can’t be certain whether something very close to it happened.
I stole a quote from a friend, he says “not only is it apocryphal, it also might not be true.”
While I would not go quite so far as Wendell, the best something apocryphal can expect is agnosticism – we do not and probably cannot know whether Alexander the Great said that as he crossed the Euphrates. In most cases there is either proof or strong evidence pointing to the bogosity of the attributed quotation or action.
“Possibly apocryphal”, like “more perfect” or “nearly unique,” appears solecistic but is not. For example:
Edmond Burke is famously reputed to have said “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” And attributions of this quotation to him are rife, and some of them very old. It sounds, both in content and in style, like something he would have said. However, the best efforts of those interested in tracking quotations and of students of Burke have never pinned down where and when, if anywhere or ever, he said it. It is possibly apocryphal.
Whether or not something is a paradox has nothing to do with weirdness.
I heard Yogi Berra once said that. But he might not have.
I use it to mean “it sounds too cute to not be bullshit, but you never know.”
I believe the expression relates directly to how the Apocrypha is viewed by the church. That while it may or may not actually be the word of God it is the kind of thing God would have said, even if he didn’t actually say it.
So redundancy is always a (pittable) Bad Thing? By your logic I should be pitting you for your use of “actually” in “This is actually a pit threat [sic] in disguise”. The assertion “This is a pit thread in disguise” already implies actuality. Quit being redundant!
Beyond that, as anyone can tell, it is notactually a pit thread, in disguise or not; it’s clearly a GQ thread. Only if he had started it, or the modeerators move it, in rhw Pit, would it be a Pit thread.
The sections of the Bible that are apocryphal are usually in an appendix.
If someone provides a quote and says it’s apocryphal then it’s back there.
If he says it might be apocryphal, then he’s not sure.
So it’s not redundant at all.
Um, except if you’re Catholic.
I always thought apocryphal meant “attributed after the fact”.
A word that means, “maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t” just seems so useless and tautological… If apocryphal were to mean that, then what word would mean “attributed after the fact”? ‘false’? Well, if your friend tells you Churchill’s favorite word was ‘fabulous’, then that would be false. If everyone, for centuries, has attributed the theory of gravity to an apple, then that’s apocryphal. It’s a word that recognizes the processes at work in passing down history. It’s a great word. It shouldn’t mean “maybe.” That’s what’s “possibly apocryphal” is for.
Well, um-- you were wrong. That’s just not what ‘apocryphal’ means. The fact that you think it ought to mean something different is pretty much totally immaterial.
The Italians have the best expression for good stories which are ‘possibly apocryphal’.
Se non e vero, e ben trovato, even if it’s not true, it’s well invented.
That is a way of telling the storyteller that you do not believe it really happened. In Spanish there is the expression “bien pudiera ser verdad y no haber sucedido” (It could well be true and never have happened) which is a way of trying to reconcile the fact that you believe it never happened with the truth of the story. “I will concede that the story is true if you concede it never happened.”