I'm told that the word '
factoid' was a
creation of the
great (or
not-so-great, depending on your
point of view)
Norman Mailer, who supposedly wrote that 'factoids are...
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 etymology of the word makes sense - the word 'oid', according to Merriam-Webster, means 'something resembling a (specified) object or having a (specified) quality'. A factoid swims, waddles, and quacks like a fact, but it ain't a fact, no matter who tries to tell you otherwise. It's a commonly accepted falsehood, a sound-bite myth. Or, more eloquently, from Mailer again : A factoid isn't a fact, but it damn well should be.
CNN's definition of factoid (seeming to mean 'interesting statistic') is wrong, but not for long; CNN's definition is becoming the accepted definition. It's not the correct meaning, but it just sounds right... making the meaning of the word itself a factoid.
And then that brings up the question of whether or not my quotes above are accurate in the least. I didn't bother to go to the library to find the book (titled 'Marilyn') where Mailer created the word, Burgess-like, so I might be propogating another falsehood, another factoid.