MUCH IN VOGUE NOWADAYS is "fake news", suggesting that the newly-household expression may make it onto the Collins Online Dictionary list of the most overused terms of 2017, and inspiring me to have a brief look at what this linguistic item really means.
AS ANY SENSIBLE LINGUISTIC PHILOSOPHER knows, two words or expressions must have different meanings in at least one situation to justify the fact that they exist separately, as demonstrated by the example given by the great Wilfred Hodges in his book Logic, in order to explain the difference between saying (after one person has shot another person's cow) "I'm afraid I shot your cow by accident", rather than "I shot your cow by mistake".
SUCH SUBTLE DIFFERENCES ARE KNOWN to anyone who went to school in the days before the subjects of Latin and Greek were abandoned in favour of lessons about how to look after a Tamagotchi, which themselves are part of the ancient history syllabus for many of the children at school nowadays, preferring lessons in YouTube and killing people in "online real-life-like situations" on their phones.
THUS 'FAKE NEWS' MUST be different to 'false news', particularly as even in the United States of America politicians cannot get away with calling people liars. I detect a clue in the rather bizarre new "panel show" The Fake News Show, which recently started on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom. This comedy treat started out by having the members of the panel "tweet" false news (aka "lies") about themselves, and then wait to see how long it would be before a reputable newspaper or other communications medium took the bait and published it as "real" news, a process through which it would become "fake news".
CONFUSED? DO NOT BE. Newspapers have been publishing lies ever since newspapers have existed, and there are various good reasons and acceptable situations in which one may tolerate this: while Prince Harry was serving in Afghanistan newspapers were asked by Buckingham Palace to keep this fact secret and to occasionally slip in little "white lies" about his whereabouts in order for the curious not to twig the truth due to Harry's absence from official royal duties such as playing pool naked.
THUS DONALD J TRUMP HAS EVERY REASON to haul the media over the coals in the way he does without having his own feet held to the fire. We appear to have come -- finally -- to an age where someone in power is deciding to state what a great many people have known for a long time: politicians and written press journalists cannot be trusted.
INDEED MANY POLLS PLACE their credibility lower than real estate agents or used car salesmen. And it is in some way fitting that the owner of a real estate emporium should be the current leader of the free world, having criticised his opponents, all of whom are "career politicians", threatening his main rival with the hoosegow, and now turning his attention to the media.
TRUMP'S RECEPTION AND PERFORMANCE in Florida last night shows that he has great support among the very people who do not trust these politicians and who probably spend little time or attention on the mainstream media. President Trump again comes over as a communicator and his wife as a charmer. However, the same issue pops up when I see Trump as when I hear or read what he says, leaving me in a quandary: Is that fake tan? Or false tan?
