Re:The World Is Running Out of Sand
by bostonpete on Monday November 20, 2017 @01:00PM
(#15741758)
Why do you say that? I don't see how that follows from beat's comment...
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The -oid suffix means "similar to" or "resembling."
For example: a humanoid is something resembling a human, but not a human.
So, traditionally, a factoid is something resembling, but not, a fact.
However, it has been misused for so long, it's now considered by many ok to use "factoid" to mean a trivial, related fact.
> considered by many
It's the first definition in the dictionary.
There is no "the" dictionary. And in most respected dictionaries, it isn't the first definition.
Re:The World Is Running Out of Sand
by emodendroket on Monday November 20, 2017 @05:00PM
(#15743704)
Some dictionaries order senses by age and others by usage (which may be somehow measured or may just be up to the instincts of the editors), so this isn't a useful metric without knowing the standard of the dictionary we are talking about.