Sunday, April 22, 2007

fakeness


It's beyond me how the term "fakeness" is used so widely. My source here is rather lame, but over a thousand profiles on orkut have the word "fakeness" in them! Isn't the noun "fakery"... or have my poor old oxford and dictionary.com not been updated? I even looked it up on Merriam-Webster, but without any luck. Do people believe that this is actually a word, or am I living in some distant land where a mouse is still just a little rodent that runs about? What has gotten me all the more confused is the fact that the spell-check in MS-Word doesn't think that it's a mistake! I wonder...

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

thats how new words get added to a language dear...someone coins some term, others find it useful to express and to communicate, et voilà, we have a new word ...

Renuka said...

Unless there already exists a word which means exactly that! In that case, its just called bad english

Anonymous said...

nope... e.g. exactly, precisely... that's how the language grows.

Anonymous said...

and its not a case of bad english. or else, all those who came up with "synonyms" were bad at english...

(btw, i am a different anon)

Renuka said...

@all anons:
1. Why does everyone contradict this post anonymously?? That says a lot doesn't it!
2. Synonyms almost always have subtly different meanings. In anon #2's example, exactly and precisely (although used in similar situations at times) do mean slightly different things... check the dictionary if you don't believe me.
3. For people who still disagree, fakeness is.. well.. idioticness.

Anonymous said...

exactly |ɪgˌzak(t)li| |ɛg-| adverb
1 without discrepancy (used to emphasize the accuracy of a figure or description) : they met in 1989 and got married exactly two years later | fold the second strip of paper in exactly the same way.
2 in exact terms; without vagueness : what exactly are you looking for?
3 used as a reply to confirm or agree with what has just been said : “You mean that you're going to tell me the truth?” “Exactly.”

precisely |prɪˌsʌɪsli| adverb
in exact terms; without vagueness : the guidelines are precisely defined. •
exactly (used to emphasize the complete accuracy or truth of a statement) : at 2:00 precisely, the phone rang | kids will love it precisely because it will irritate their parents. •
used as a reply to assert emphatic agreement with or confirmation of a statement : “You mean it was a conspiracy?” “Precisely.”

anonymously? namelessly?

i agree with your point though... its a stupid excuse for bad english... but then you understood what was meant and the point of having a language was complete.

All hail human evolution

PS: this is anonymous number 1... and number anonymous 2, you made the same point!! So anonymously I shall take the credit.... muhahahahha.... wait a sec... am I missing something?

A

Anonymous said...

As one of those people who have used 'fakeness' in their profiles, I completely agree with Anonymous.

Anonymous said...

and anons are anons bcoz they're too lazy to sign up...

Renuka said...

@wiseguy-anon:
How about the following:
1. The twins looked exactly the same. (precisely??)
2. It was a precisely written text. (exactly??)

For anyone else who posts, please do not give me examples like "Are you trying to prove me wrong?" - which can be answered using both exactly/precisely

I do not deny that they can be used in the same context, but they do not ALWAYS mean the same thing.

Anonymous said...

exactly

Anonymous said...

or precisely.. ;)

gaurav.suryagandh said...

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fakery

Renuka said...

@Gaurav: Finally!...Thank you!

Anonymous said...

wah wah, apte has a blog..she writes, and well [:)] ...reached through random surfing

- anand

Tazeen said...

is fakeness a grammatically correct term?

Anonymous said...

"its just called bad english..."

Ahem... bad english is poor english.

FifthBeatle said...

Comments thread more interesting than post. Well, well.

Kudos on the "exactly"/"precisely" examples.

David said...

to me, fakery seems to indicate an actor and motive, while fakeness better indicates an objective quality of an object. I'm using "fakeness" where I don't want to imply an intent to deceive. Of course, "falseness" and "inauthenticity" are better.