{"id":656,"date":"2010-02-04T15:34:29","date_gmt":"2010-02-04T23:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=656"},"modified":"2012-11-27T19:25:59","modified_gmt":"2012-11-28T03:25:59","slug":"the-difference-between-a-fact-and-a-factoid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2010\/02\/the-difference-between-a-fact-and-a-factoid\/","title":{"rendered":"The Difference Between a Fact and a Factoid"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Englrish\"<\/a>Today I found out<\/a> the difference between a fact and a factoid.\u00a0 I have gotten several helpful commenters pointing out recently that perhaps I am using the word “factoid” incorrectly in my articles here, thinking that it means the same as “fact”.\u00a0 In fact (eh? eh?) ;-), I am not.\u00a0 But since this is a common area of confusion, indeed English language usage guides typically recommend against using the word “factoid” because of the confusion surrounding it, I have decided to do an article on it.<\/p>\n

Due to the confusion surrounding this word, I can absolutely see where they are coming from as “Factoid” has two somewhat distinct definitions, one being more or less a subset of “Fact”, the other not meaning the same thing at all as “Fact”.\u00a0 Despite the general recommendation against its use by English guides, I still like to use it because it is the only single word that means exactly what I’m trying to say in my “Bonus<\/span> Factoid” section at the end of some articles.<\/p>\n

“Fact” obviously means something that is unquestionably true, or as Webster more eloquently puts it, it is the “quality of being actual”.<\/p>\n

“Factoid” however means something slightly different.\u00a0 The first definition, for which it would seem I’m incorrect in my usage, is the following:\u00a0 “an invented fact, believed to be true because of its appearance in print”<\/p>\n

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This was the original definition coined in 1973 by Norman Mailer.\u00a0 Mailer described a factoid as “facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper”.\u00a0\u00a0 He came up with the word, adding the suffix “oid” as an “oid” ending implies “similar but not the same” or more succinctly “like” or “resembling”.<\/p>\n

\"English<\/a>However, thanks in large part to CNN and the BBC in the 1980s\/1990s to today including “factoids<\/a>” in their news casts referring to trivial bits of factual information, there is now a second “official” definition of “factoid” as follows (from Merriam-Webster): “a briefly stated and usually trivial fact”<\/p>\n

And it is of course this definition to which I am using this word at the end of some of my articles when I have “Bonus<\/span> Factoids<\/a>“, bulleted short trivial facts.<\/p>\nExpand for References:<\/span>

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