Re:The World Is Running Out of Sand
by civilian on Monday November 20, 2017 @01:22PM
(#15741915)
Ah, the second definition isn't one I've ever seen used? A factoid may be used inappropriately to support an unrelated argument, ("the last pirates were seen in the 1800s, right as climate change started") but they're still _true_.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
That's actually the original meaning. "Factoids... that is, facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper, creations which are not so much lies as a product to manipulate emotion in the Silent Majority."
The meaning has since mutated, and of course there's no reason we should be constrained to the original.
Re:The World Is Running Out of Sand
by emodendroket on Monday November 20, 2017 @04:59PM
(#15743695)
It's the original and etymologically, it makes more sense, since "-oid" means "resembling." "Humanoids" are not human, for instance. But of course appeals to etymology are not a good way to determine what a word means.