[at-l] SOT :-? Hike 55 with 44 lbs.

[bullard@northnet.org (Jim Bullard)]

At 10:34 AM 11/20/2002 -0500, William Neal wrote:
>PS   And NO, I do not mean to belittle the horrors that the concentration
>camp inmates had to under go.  Just thought it was an interesting factoid
>...clip...

I won't go off on the concentration camp thing but you hit one of my pet
peeves with the word "factoid". According to the dictionary a factoid is:
fac=B7toid ( P ) Pronunciation Key (facktoid)
n.
A piece of unverified or inaccurate information that is presented in the
press as factual, often as part of a publicity effort, and that is then
accepted as true because of frequent repetition: =93What one misses finally
is what might have
merged beyond both facts and factoids a profound definition of the Marilyn
Monroe phenomenon=94 (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt).

If what you are presenting is true, it is a fact.  If it merely presents
itself as fact without any demonstrable basis in truth, it is a
factoid.  Did you mean to imply that the information was not a fact?

sAunTerer