The Facts on Fact

[Slava]

A rather entertaining column in The Atlantic, on the use of the word fact.

[Philip Hudson]

Actually, I literally used the phrase "as a matter of fact" in my callow youth.

[Perry Lassiter]

Actually a true fact is one that shows a one to one correspondence with reality and is verifiable. Science is filled with demonstrable facts that can be checked by repeatble experiments. When one leaves that field for another realm, say politics, the match to reality may well be distorted, thus the proliferation of fact checking. In fact, that's a whole new booming industry that sometimes results in clarity, but more often in obfuscation!