Truthiness

Truthiness is the quality by which a person purports to know something emotionally or instinctively, without regard to evidence or to what the person might conclude from intellectual examination. Stephen Colbert created this definition of the word during the first episode (October 17, 2005) of his satirical television program The Colbert Report, as the subject of a segment called "The Wørd."

By using the term as part of his satirical routine, Colbert sought to critique the tendency to rely upon "truthiness," and its use as an appeal to emotion in contemporary socio-political discourse. He particularly applied it to President Bush's modus operandi in nominating Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court and in deciding to invade Iraq.

Colbert unknowingly reinvented the word "truthiness", as it appears in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), where "truthy," the word it is derived from, is defined as a variation of straightforward truthfulness, and indicated as rare or dialectal. The prior existence of the word was apparently first pointed out by linguist and OED consultant Benjamin Zimmer. Colbert invented its new definition and popularized it among a mainstream audience. "Truthiness" was selected by the American Dialect Society as the 2005 Word of the Year, and by the The New York Times as one of nine words that captured the spirit of 2005. "Truthiness" has also been discussed in the Washington Post, USA Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, CNN, MSNBC, the Associated Press, Editor & Publisher, Salon, The Huffington Post, and Chicago Reader, and on ABC's Nightline, CBS's 60 Minutes, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. In January 2006, "truthiness" was featured as a Word of the Week by the website of the Macmillan English Dictionary.

Origin

Colbert introduced the word "truthiness" on the premiere episode of The Colbert Report, on October 17, 2005. He came up with the idea of "truthiness" just moments before filming for the show began. He used "truthiness" in a monologue that emphasized its role as an ironic political polemic compressed into a single word, as demonstrated in the following excerpts:

Colbert gave an out-of-character interview with The Onion's A.V. Club, in which he responded to the question, "What's your take on the 'truthiness' imbroglio that's tearing our country apart?" by elaborating on the critique he intended to convey with the word "truthiness":

CNN and ABC News coverage

Six days after Colbert introduced "truthiness," CNN's Reliable Sources featured a discussion of The Colbert Report by host Howard Kurtz, who played a clip of Colbert mentioning truthiness.

On the same day, ABC's Nightline also reported on truthiness, prompting Colbert to respond by saying "You know what was missing from that piece? Me. Stephen Colbert. But I'm not surprised. Nightline's on opposite me..." Nightline host Jake Tapper had in fact made reference to watching The Colbert Report after Monday Night Football, which pushes Nightline away from conflicting with the Report, so that he could watch it without feeling guilty.

The New York Times coverage

In its October 25 issue, eight days after the premiere episode of the Report, The New York Times ran its third article on The Colbert Report, penned by Alessandra Stanley, titled "Bringing Out the Absurdity of the News." The article specifically discussed the segment on "truthiness," although the Times misreported the Wørd as "trustiness." In its November 1 issue, the Times ran a correction clarifying that the Wørd had been "truthiness," not "trustiness." On the next episode of the Report, Colbert took the Times to task for the error, pointing out (with ironic relish) that "trustiness" is "not even a word."

In its December 25 issue, the Times again discussed "truthiness," this time as one of nine words that had captured the year's zeitgeist, in an article titled "2005: In a Word; Truthiness" by Jacques Steinberg. In crediting "truthiness," Steinberg said, "the pundit who probably drew the most attention in 2005 was only playing one on TV: Stephen Colbert."

In the January 22 issue, columnist Frank Rich used the term "truthiness" seven times, with credit to Colbert, in a column titled "Truthiness 101: From Frey to Alito," to discuss Republican portrayals of several issues (including the Samuel Alito nomination, Katrina response, and Jack Murtha's wartime record). Rich emphasized the extent to which the word "truthiness" had quickly become a cultural fixture, saying, "The mock Comedy Central pundit Stephen Colbert's slinging of the word 'truthiness' caught on instantaneously last year precisely because we live in the age of truthiness." Editor & Publisher magazine reported on Rich's use of "truthiness" in his column, saying he "tackled the growing trend to 'truthiness,' as opposed to truth, in the U.S."

The January 30 issue of the Times included an article titled "How Oprahness Trumped Truthiness" by David Carr, although the article itself did not refer to "truthiness." Because the editors write the headlines in all stories for the Times, the "truthiness" reference must have been added by the editors to describe the theme of Carr's article.

American Dialect Society's Word of the Year

On January 6, 2006, the American Dialect Society announced that truthiness was selected as its 2005 Word of the Year. The Society described its rationale as follows:

"In its 16th annual words of the year vote, the American Dialect Society voted truthiness as the word of the year. First heard on The Colbert Report, a satirical mock news show on the Comedy Channel href="http://articles.gourt.com/en/sic">sic, truthiness refers to the quality of stating concepts or facts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true. As Stephen Colbert put it, 'I don't trust books. They're all fact, no heart.'"

Apparently after realizing that "truthiness" was found in the Oxford English Dictionary, the Society later changed the wording of this press release on their website, from "First heard on The Colbert Report..." to "Recently popularized on The Colbert Report..."

Alleged snubbing by the Associated Press, and Colbert's response

The Associated Press reported on the American Dialect Society's selection of truthiness as the Word of the Year, including the following comments by one of the voting linguists:

"Michael Adams, a professor at North Carolina State University who specializes in lexicology, said "truthiness" means 'truthy, not facty.' 'The national argument right now is, one, who's got the truth and, two, who's got the facts,' he said. 'Until we can manage to get the two of them back together again, we're not going make much progress.'"

On each of the first four episodes of the Report after the selection of truthiness as Word of the Year, Colbert lamented that news reports neglected to acknowledge him as the source of the word. On the first of these episodes, he added Michael Adams to his "On Notice" board, and Associated Press reporter Heather Clark, the author of the article, to his "Dead to Me" board. On the third of these episodes, he ranked the AP at the top of the "Threat-Down," one of few entries ever to gain the number one spot in place of bears. On the following episode he called Michael Adams and asked for an apology. Though Michael Adams never apologized, Colbert "accepted" his "apology," and took him "off notice." Adams also pointed out that "truthiness" is in the Oxford English Dictionary, although the dictionary definition was in fact the near opposite of the meaning of the word as used both by Adams and Colbert.

The Associated Press responds to Colbert

On January 13, the first day after the four-day run of abuse of the AP on the Report, the AP ran a story about The Colbert Report being upset about being snubbed by the AP, in an article titled "Colbert: AP the biggest threat to America." As he has in the past, Colbert remained in character in an interview for the story, and used it to further the political satire of "truthiness;" excerpts of the story are:

"...When an AP story about the designation sent coast to coast failed to mention Colbert, he began a tongue-in-cheek crusade, not unlike the kind his muse Bill O'Reilly might lead in all seriousness."

"'It's a sin of omission...' Stephen Colbert told the AP on Thursday....'It's like Shakespeare still being alive and not asking him what "Hamlet" is about,' he said."

"The Oxford English Dictionary has a definition for 'truthy' dating back to the 1800s....'The fact that they looked it up in a book just shows that they don't get the idea of truthiness at all,' Stephen Colbert said Thursday. 'You don't look up truthiness in a book, you look it up in your gut.'"

"Though slight, the difference of Colbert's definition and the OED's is essential. It's not your typical truth, but, as The New York Times wrote, 'a summation of what (Colbert) sees as the guiding ethos of the loudest commentators on Fox News, MSNBC and CNN.'"

"Colbert, who referred on his program to the AP omission as a 'journalistic travesty,' said Thursday that it was similar to the much-criticized weapons of mass destruction reporting leading up to the Iraq War. 'Except,' he said, 'people got hurt this time.'"

On January 14, Clark herself responded in an article titled "Exclusive 'News' - I'm dead to Stephen Colbert." She furthered the rise of "truthiness" in published English in conceding, "Truthiness be told, I never had seen The Colbert Report until my name graced its 'Dead to Me' board this week....But I will say that I watched Colbert's show for the first time...It was funny. And that's not just truthy. That's a fact."

James Frey controversy

The Chicago Tribune published an editorial in its January 16, 2006 issue titled "The Truthiness Hurts," crediting the rise of "truthiness" as serendipitously providing an apt description of the Oprah Book Club controversy over James Frey's semi-fictional memoir A Million Little Pieces. "Truthiness" was also used to describe the Frey controversy by USA Today in its January 15, 2006 issue, by several other publications including the The New York Times and by the television news program Nightline on its October 23 and January 26 editions.

Oprah Winfrey also discussed "truthiness" with Frank Rich on her show, in reference to the Frey controversy and the column "Truthiness 101" Rich had recently published in the New York Times. They also mentioned Colbert's role in popularizing "truthiness."

On January 27, MSNBC ran a commentary titled "Oprah strikes a blow for truthiness: Do facts really matter? Ask Winfrey, James Frey or Stephen Colbert," making the case that Winfrey's about-face on Frey's book was a "small (and belated) but bold nudge back out of the proud halls of truthiness," but also opportunistic and too little too late.

Additional attention

On January 5, 2006, one day before its announcement as the American Dialect Society's Word of the Year, etymology professor Anatoly Liberman began an hour-long program on public radio by discussing "truthiness" and predicting that it would be included in dictionaries in the next year or two. His prediction seemed to be on track when the website of the Macmillan English Dictionary featured "truthiness" as its Word of the Week at the end of January.

Intellectual property attorney Marty Schwimmer has suggested that Colbert may be able to claim rights to the word "truthiness" as a trademark or under a right of publicity.

The February 13, 2006, issue of Newsweek magazine featured an article on The Colbert Report titled "The Truthiness Teller." It recounted the career of the word "truthiness" since its popularization by Colbert as described above.

On January 31, 2006, Arianna Huffington used "truthiness" on the Huffington Post. Huffington later appeared as a guest on the March 1, 2006, episode of The Colbert Report. She challenged Colbert on his claim that he had invented the word "truthiness." During the interview, Colbert declared, "I'm not a truthiness fanatic; I'm truthiness's father." Huffington corrected him, citing Wikipedia, that he had merely "popularized" the term. Regarding her source, Colbert, in-character, responded: "Fuck them."

On May 4, 2006, Liberal Party of Canada leadership contender Ken Dryden used "truthiness" as an extensive theme in a speech in the House of Commons. The speech dealt critically with the current government's Universal Child Care Plan. Dryden defined truthiness as "something that is spoken as if true that one wants others to believe is true, that said often enough with enough voices orchestrated in behind it, might even sound true, but is not true."

On June 3, 2006, after Colbert delivered the commencement speech at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, he was presented with both an honorary degree and a purple T-shirt bearing a logo that reads, "Veritasiness Tour", creating a semi-Latinized version of "truthiness".

Describing President Bush in person

On April 29, 2006, Colbert was the featured guest at the White House correspondents' dinner and, in President Bush's immediate presence, described Bush's thought processes by repeating almost verbatim some of his original description of "truthiness," although he did not use the word itself.

Editor and Publisher again used "truthiness" to describe Colbert's criticism of President Bush, in an article published the same day entitled "Colbert Lampoons Bush at White House Correspondents Dinner--President Not Amused?" E&P reported that the "blistering comedy 'tribute' to President Bush... left George and Laura Bush unsmiling at its close" and that many people at the dinner "looked a little uncomfortable at times, perhaps feeling the material was a little too biting--or too much speaking 'truthiness' to power." E&P reported a few days later that its coverage of Colbert at the dinner drew "possibly its highest one-day traffic total ever," and published a letter to the editor asserting that "Colbert brought truth wrapped in truthiness."

On the same weekend, the Washington Post published transcripts of segments from The Colbert Report under the heading "dept. of truthiness;" Salon covered Colbert at the White House dinner in an article entitled "The Truthiness Hurts: Stephen Colbert's brilliant performance unplugged the Bush myth machine -- and left the clueless D.C. press corps gaping;" and the popular news program 60 Minutes on CBS featured an interview with Colbert by Morley Safer, in which Safer discussed truthiness.

Colbert's effort at the WHCA dinner prompted "truthiness" to hit a new popularity peak in blog postings following the dinner - even though he did not actually use the word at the dinner, demonstrating the widespread association of Colbert with "truthiness."

The New York Times published two letters on the dinner in its May 3, 2006 edition, under the headline "Truthiness and Power."

References

External links

Linguistics | The Colbert Report | Logical fallacies | Neologisms