Truthiness - Widespread Recognition

Widespread Recognition

Usage of "truthiness" continued to proliferate in media, politics, and public consciousness. On January 5, 2006, 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 next day, the American Dialect Society announced that "truthiness" was its 2005 Word of the Year, and the website of the Macmillan English Dictionary featured truthiness as its Word of the Week a few weeks later. Truthiness was also selected by The New York Times as one of nine words that captured the spirit of 2005. Global Language Monitor, which tracks trends in languages, named truthiness the top television buzzword of 2006, and another term Colbert coined with reference to truthiness, wikiality, as another of the top ten television buzzwords of 2006, the first time two words from the same show have made the list.

The word was listed in the annual "Banished Word List" released by a committee at Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan in 2007. The list included "truthiness" among other overused terms, such as "awesome," celebrity couple portmanteaus such as "Brangelina," and "pwn." In response, on January 8, 2007 Colbert stated that Lake Superior State University was an "attention-seeking second-tier state university". The 2008 List of Banished Words restored "truthiness" to formal usage, in response to the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike.