Factoid: not trivial
- factoid | ˈfaktɔɪd | noun
- an item of unreliable information that is reported and repeated so often that it becomes accepted as fact: he addresses the facts and factoids which have buttressed the film's legend.
- North American a brief or trivial item of news or information: how does the brain retain factoids that you remember from a history test at school?
I really have no idea how this came to pass, but a little while ago I was musing on the use of factoid
to describe a trivial piece of information. Or is it an item of misinformation? It turns out that the latter is the original definition, and the former is a USAsian adaptation. Hence the confusion: one word, two meanings…how typical of the English language.
Anyhow, I thought that factette
would be a pretty decent alternative for the description of a small, trivial piece of information. And it appears that I'm not the only one. The word already exists for that very purpose, along with factlet. So, I will endeavour to used factette in future.
- factette | ˈfaktɛt; | noun
- factlet | ˈfaktlɛt | noun
- a small snippet of true information; a fact of little importance.