Truth

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Dr. Goodword
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Truth

Postby Dr. Goodword » Mon Nov 07, 2022 6:23 pm

• truth •


Pronunciation: truth • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. In accord with reality, in conformity with facts. 2. An axiomatic principle, a fact that has been or can be proven. 3. A religious principle or doctrine, an article of true religious belief. 4. Fidelity to an original or standard.

Notes: This word is a true English lexical oddity: a word whose pronunciation is true to its spelling. Its adjectives include truthful, truthlike, and truthy. The latter two mean "appearing truthful without actually being so". Its verb, truthify, is the antonym of falsify, meaning "to prove something to be true".

In Play: Perhaps the most famous use of truth is in the oath sworn to by a witness taking the stand in a trial: "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" Someone once said, "The first victim of war is truth". Truth has had a long, hard life: "Truth, sir, is a cow which will yield [some] people with no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull." —Samuel Johnson, The Life of Samuel Johnson, 1763, Vol I, p. 126)

Word History: Today's Good Word is a relative of tree, believe it or not. It descended via English's Old Germanic ancestors from PIE drew-/drow- "tree". Sanskrit dru "tree, wood", Greek drus "oak tree", Serbian drvo "tree" and drva "wood", Russian derevo "tree, wood", and Albanian dru "tree, wood"—all descended from the same PIE word. Latin durus "hard, tough" may well be a variant. Welsh and Breton derw, and Irish and Scottish Gaelic darach "oak" are what the Celtic languages made of it. In Old English truth was triewð, the noun from Proto-Germanic treuwaz "strong, reliable". English seems to be the only Germanic language that preserved the Proto-Germanic form and its connection between "hardness" and "trueness". (Now, let's double thank Jeremy Busch, a member of the GW editorial board who suggested today's very important Good Word—and that's the truth!)
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MTC
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Re: Truth

Postby MTC » Tue Nov 08, 2022 4:47 am

“truth:” the only word in the English language whose use
immediately impugns the speaker’s credibility; a noun mostly honored by its absence in human affairs.

David Myer
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Re: Truth

Postby David Myer » Wed Nov 09, 2022 5:37 am

2. An axiomatic principle, a fact that has been or can be proven. 3. A religious principle or doctrine, an article of true religious belief.
How interesting that these two definitions offered by the Good Doctor are so far apart in meaning. The one is something that can be proven and the other is a matter of faith and cannot be proven.

I suspect that the reality here is that religious people have, somewhere along the line, adopted the word to give their beliefs a feel of veracity and rigour.

This is not to slight in any way my many friends who enjoy clear religious beliefs. Just saying that truth is an interesting word for faith or belief.

Philip Hudson
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Re: Truth

Postby Philip Hudson » Thu Nov 10, 2022 1:14 am

Thanks for quoting my old friend, Samuel Johnson. Old Sam, after many years a widower, was not kind to the feminists of his day. He had a few other prejudices. He said he wasn't afraid to be dead, but he dreaded the passage required. He refuted this on his death bed and said death was not such a bad event.
It is dark at night, but the Sun will come up and then we can see.

George Kovac
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Re: Truth

Postby George Kovac » Thu Nov 10, 2022 9:27 am

Thanks for quoting my old friend, Samuel Johnson. Old Sam, after many years a widower, was not kind to the feminists of his day. He had a few other prejudices. He said he wasn't afraid to be dead, but he dreaded the passage required.

Woody Allen (a funny guy in his youth, but later revealed, like Samuel Johnson, to be deeply flawed as a human being) was more succinct than Johnson on the topic of death.

Allen explained “I’m not afraid of death. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”
"Every battle of ideas is fought on the terrain of language." Zia Haider Rahman, New York Times 4/8/2016

Philip Hudson
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Re: Truth

Postby Philip Hudson » Thu Nov 10, 2022 5:53 pm

Pontius Pilate asked, "What is truth?". The U of Texas misapplies "The Truth shall make you free" on an inscription on the Main building. That is not what it means in the Bible. Jesus is the Truth in the Bible.
Of course, non-believers do not have to assert that. But the Christian does.
It is dark at night, but the Sun will come up and then we can see.


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