alternative facts
alternative facts – sostantivo plurale
misspeak – verbo
misremember – verbo
You’re saying it’s a falsehood. And they’re giving Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that.
Wait a minute … alternative facts? Alternative facts? … Look, alternative facts are not facts. They’re falsehoods.
Most people believe there is truth and there are lies. “Alternative facts” are lies.
As it happens, though, the left laid the foundation for “alternative facts.”
I politici e i loro portavoce hanno sempre trovato il modo di cavarsi d’impiccio se messi davanti all’evidenza di aver mentito su qualcosa: si erano espressi male (‘misspoke’) o ricordavano male (‘misremembered’)… Anni fa, un ministro britannico ammise di essere stato ‘economical with the truth’, ovvero parsimonioso nel dire la verità. Tuttavia, è assolutamente senza precedenti che il braccio destro di un presidente americano dichiari in TV che un evento a cui hanno assistito milioni persone non sia un fatto ma semplicemente una delle possibili versioni della realtà. Eppure è proprio quello che ha fatto Kellyanne Conway quando ha affermato in un’intervista televisiva che le dichiarazioni fatte il giorno precedente dall’addetto stampa della Casa Bianca, Sean Spicer, non erano bugie o falsità ma alternative facts.
Origini del termine
Di solito è difficile stabilire con esattezza la nascita di un neologismo, ma non in questo caso: la perla in questione è nata il 22 gennaio 2017, partorita dalla fervida mente di Kellyanne Conway, consulente di Trump, durante l’intervista Meet the Press con Chuck Todd sulla NBC.
Traduzione di Loredana Riu
alternative facts – plural noun
misspeak – verb
misremember – verb
You’re saying it’s a falsehood. And they’re giving Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that.
Wait a minute … alternative facts? Alternative facts? … Look, alternative facts are not facts. They’re falsehoods.
Most people believe there is truth and there are lies. “Alternative facts” are lies.
As it happens, though, the left laid the foundation for “alternative facts.”
Politicians and the people who speak for them have many ways of backtracking when challenged about having said something that isn’t true. They ‘misspoke’, or they ‘misremembered’ what had actually happened. On one famous occasion, a British cabinet minister admitted that he had been ‘economical with the truth’. It is something new, however, for a political adviser to claim on national TV that events witnessed by millions are not facts at all, but simply possible versions of reality. This is what happened when Kellyanne Conway asserted on US TV that statements made the previous day by White House press secretary Sean Spicer were not lies or falsehoods, they were alternative facts.
Origins
It is relatively rare to be able to pinpoint the birth of a neologism exactly, but in this case we can. Alternative facts were born to Trump Adviser Kellyanne Conway on Sunday 22nd January during an interview with Chuck Todd on NBC’s Meet the Press.
