This funny Associated Press news item explains the furor Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert has been raising since the Associated Press ran an article that didn't credit him for inventing the word "truthiness." Evidently, it's been in existence since the 1800s according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
Quoted from the article:
"Michael Adams, a visiting associate professor at North Carolina State University who specializes in lexicology, pointed to that definition and has said Colbert's claim to inventing the word is 'untrue.' (Adams served as the expert opinion in the initial AP story.)"
"'The fact that they looked it up in a book just shows that they don't get the idea of truthiness at all,' Colbert said Thursday. 'You don't look up truthiness in a book, you look it up in your gut.'"
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This terrific Salon piece by Gina Fattore perfectly sums up why I felt prideful prejudice against the latest film adaptation of Jane Austen's masterpiece.
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This is my friend K-girl's band's myspace page. They're named Flotilla and they're totally Carter.
(A shout-out to C-girl for hooking me up with the first two links.)
2 comments:
Huh? Gina Fattore just doesn't get it. Jane Austen was a romantic! She wrote about romance-not the irrational kind, but the rational, sensible kind. Yes, she was all about female empowerment and independence, but at the end of the day, Elizabeth still fell in love w/ the handsome and rich Mr. Darcy! That’s the beauty of it. I'm not saying the movie didn't take artistic license with w/the rain scene, sure maybe that was a little contrived. What a small thing to take issue with! Miss Fattore was surely grasping at straws here. The movie essentially captured what Austen wrote about—the absurdity and snobbishness of the upper class and the foils of senseless irrational romanticism. Loosen up Miss Fattore!
Nicely put. Thanks for sharing your take on it. I couldn't put my finger on what was bothering me about the film, but Miss Fattore expressed it well. I still haven't seen it, but it's in my Netflix queue. I'm planning to watch it with no Jane fan baggage unpacked--just as a romantic comedy/period piece that some bloke filmed recently.
I'm constantly amazed at how films can evoke such different reactions in people who tend to agree on most other things. The divine Miss Jane even had that one figured out:
"One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other."
—Jane Austen
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