English Irregular Verbs

On news of Blair's savage defense of his latest crackdown on crime:

• They are out of touch with your voters.
• You make brave decisions.
• I take bold decisions that will be judged positively by history.

Past posts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Truthiness

The Word: Truthiness.

Fact, as has been often said, is stranger than Fiction. Or that is at least what I feel. In my gut.

Earlier this month, the American Dialect Society announced on that ‘truthiness’ was being voted 2005 Word of the Year, amazingly beating both ‘podcast’ and ’sudoko’ in the process. The ADS announcement even referenced the Colbert Report, Comedy Central’s lastest and greatest ‘fake news’ show. [For those that haven't seen it, both t's are silent, a la the French pronunciation.]

The scandal is that when AP picked up the news story and released a short piece on it that was reprinted by all the major media, from CNN to Yahoo!, they failed to mention the Colbert Report entirely, citing some (Visiting Associate) Professor, who — if later investigations by Colbert are to be believed — hadn’t even heard of the Colbert Report. The Prof even denied that Colbert had ‘pulled it out of his ass’, saying that the OED had citations back to the 1800s.

Colbert replied in a subsequent show, where he proclaimed AP to be the biggest threat to America (naturally just beating bears, at least for this week, in the Threatdown), that it was “like Shakespeare still being alive and not asking him what `Hamlet’ is about,” and that:

The fact that they looked it up in a book just shows that they don’t get the idea of truthiness at all. You don’t look up truthiness in a book, you look it up in your gut.

AP have finally covered the whole sorry truthiness tale.

Now for the original citation. It’s actually from the very first Colbert Report, and, from having seen most of the first series, actually one of the funniest sections that stuck in my mind. Here it is in full…

On this show, your voice will be heard….in the form of my voice.

Because you’re looking at a straight-shooter, America. I tell it like it is. I calls them as I sees them. I will speak to you in plain, simple English.

And that brings us to tonight’s word: Truthiness.

Now I’m sure some of the Word Police, the Word-anistas over at Webbsters, are going to say, ‘Hey! That’s not a word.’ Well, anyone that knows me, knows that I’m not fan of dictionaries or reference books: they’re elitist, constantly telling us what is or isn’t true or what did or did not happen. Who’s Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was built in 1914? If I want to say it was built in 1941, that’s my rights.

I don’t trust books. They are all fact; no heart. And that’s exactly what’s pulling our country apart today, because, face it folks, we are a divided nation. Not between Democrats and Republicans, or Conservatives and Liberals, or Tops and Bottoms. No, we’re divided between those that think with their head and those that know with their heart.

Consider Harriet Myers: If you think about Harriet Myers, then of course her nomination’s absurd. But the President didn’t say he thought about her selection, he said this: I know her heart. Notice how he said nothing about her brain. He didn’t have to. He feels the truth about Harriet Myers.

And what about Iraq? If you think about it, maybe there are a few missing pieces to the rationale for war. But doesn’t taking Saddam out feel like the right thing? Right here. Right here in the gut. Because that’s where the Truth comes from, ladies and gentlemen. The gut.

Do you know you have more nerve-endings in your stomach than in your head? Look it up. Now, somebody’s going to say, I did look that up, and it’s wrong. Well, Mr, that’s because you looked it up in a book. Next time try looking it up in your gut. I did, and my gut tells me that’s how our nervous system works.

And I know some of you may not trust gut, yet. But with my help you will.

The truthiness is that anyone can read the news to you. I promise to feel the news at you.
—–

Greavsie

by John Hegley

(source)

it’s not much of a planet
that everybody leaves
there’s not a lot of faith about
but I am someone who believes
that what we need without a doubt
is more of Jimmy Greaves

imagine Jimmy’s picture in every picture frame
imagine all religion praising Jimmy’s name
the world is just a candle
and Jimmy Greavse is the flame
won’t you gimme Jimmy
it used to be his turn of speed.
he left defences in a daze
now he rents his turn of phrase
and when I turn on the TV
and Jimmy’s there
my spirits raise
and when I’m in a blazing row
and I’m in the process of rolling up my sleeves
I just think of Greavsie
and he relieves me
more and more of Greavsie
is what this country needs
he’s the man to sow the seeds of sanity
he’s off the boooze
he’s on the ball
he’s got a message for us all
he can help humanity
to heal itself
to haul itself
from this self-destructive stupor
he’s what you call a trooper
I think he’s blinking super
he’s a tooper super duper
so please don’t give me Henry Cooper
he isn’t Jimmy Greaves
people say that I’m loopy
they think I’m nothing but a Greavsie groupie
but I tell them
you’re not fit to wash Jimmy Greaves’ moustache.
—–