What Is a Hoax?

There’s a word that has been in the political news a lot lately: “hoax”. It’s one of those words that just seems interesting, on the face of it. So, let’s take a look at this interesting word.

It’s always good to start with the etymology of a word. (For those new to this word game, “etymology” means tracing the development of a word since its earliest recorded occurrence in the language where it was found, then tracing its transmission from one language to another, by analyzing its component parts, by identifying its likenesses in other languages, or by tracing it and its likenesses to a common ancestral form in an ancestral language.) So, how about the etymology of “hoax”? The English philologist Robert Nares (1753-1829) said that the word was coined in the late 18th century as a contraction of the verb “hocus”, which means “to cheat”, “to impose upon”, or “to befuddle often with drugged liquor”. “Hocus” is, itself, a shortening of the magic incantation “hocus pocus”. Nares thus defined the word “hoax” as meaning “to cheat”.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “hoax” as both a verb and a noun. As a verb, it means “to trick into believing or accepting as genuine something false and often preposterous”. As a noun, it means “an act intended to trick or dupe” and “something accepted or established by fraud or fabrication”. Synonyms for the verb include “trick”, “fool”, and “deceive”. Synonyms for the noun include “counterfeit”, “fake”, “sham”, “phony”, “forgery”, “copy”, and “reproduction”.

Wikipedia says that a hoax is “a widely publicised falsehood created to deceive its audience with false and often astonishing information, with the either malicious or humorous intent of causing shock and interest in as many people as possible”.

Of course, just because something is declared a hoax, doesn’t mean that it actually is. Sometimes the one making such a declaration are themselves the hoaxer. In this day and age, it is always wise to fact-check such declarations — to do one’s own research into the truth of the matter.

What’s New on the Shelves of the Downieville Library

We’ve received, in recent weeks, several items that, while not actually new in themselves, are new to us. Here they are (just waiting for you):

Fiction books

The Secret of Santa Vittoria, by Robert Crichton

The Human Stain, by Philip Roth

Burr, by Gore Vidal

Lincoln, by Gore Vidal

Non-fiction books

The Art and Craft of Poetry, by Michael J. Bugeja

National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Rocks and Minerals, by Charles W. Chesterman

Sierra Album, by Paul C. Johnson

National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Trees: Western Region, by Elbert L. Little

National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Weather, by David M. Ludlum

Politics and the Arts, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man, by Mary L.Trump

Audio-books

The Escape, by David Baldacci (thriller)

The Whole Truth, by David Baldacci (thriller)

The Enemy, by Lee Child (thriller)

Echo Park, by Michael Connelly (mystery)

The Black Ice, by Michael Connelly (thriller)

The Colorado Kid, by Stephen King (mystery)